SAMUEL SMILES'S WORKS. 



INDTJSTEIAL BIOGEAPHY: 

IRON-WORKERS AND TOOL-MAKERS. 
1 volume. $ 1.25. 

SELF-HELP: 

WITH ILLUSTRATIONS OF .CHARACTER AND CONDUCT. 
With Portrait of John Flaxman. 1 volume. 75 cts. 

BEIEE BIOGEAPHIES. • 

1 volume. With Six Portraits. $ 1.25. 

THE IIEE OE GEOEGE STEPHENSON, 

RAILWAY ENGINEER. 
With Portrait. 1 volume. $ 1.13. 

*^* The above are published in uniform volumes. 



TICKWOR AND FIELDS, Publishers. 



INDUSTRIAL BIOGRAPHY: 



IRON-WORKERS AND TOOL-MAKERS. 



By SAMUEL SMILES, 

AUTHOR OF "self-help," " BRIEF BIOGRAPHIES," AND 
"life of GEORGE STEPHENSON." 



" The true Epic, of our time is, not A rms and the Man, but Tools and tJie 
Man,— an infinitely wider- kind of Epic." — T. Carlyle. 





BOSTON: 
TIOKNOR AND FIELDS, 

18 64. 



AUTHOR 8 EDITION. 



i 



,$ 



University Pkess: 

Welch, Bigelow, and Company, 

Cam bridge. 



PEEFACE. 



The Author offers the following hook as a con- 
tinuation, in a more generally accessible form, of 
the Series of Memoirs of Industrial Men introduced 
in his Lives of the Engineers. While preparing that 
work he frequently came across the tracks of cele- 
brated inventors, mechanics, and iron-workers, — 
the founders, in a great measure, of the modem 
industry of Britain, — whose labors seemed to him 
well worthy of being traced out and placed on rec- 
ord, and the more so as their lives presented many 
points of curious and original interest. Having 
been encouraged to prosecute the subject by offers 
of assistance from some of the most eminent living 
mechanical engineers, he is now enabled to present 
the following further series of memoirs to the 
public. 

Without exaggerating the importance of this 
class of biography, it may at least be averred that 
it has not yet received its due share of attention. 
While commemorating the labors and honoring the 
names of those who have striven to elevate man 
above the material and mechanical, the labors of 



the important industrial class to whom society owes 
so much of its comfort and well-being are also en- 
titled to consideration. Without derogating from 
the biographic claims of those who minister to in- 
tellect and taste, those who minister to utility need 
not be overlooked. When a Frenchman was prais- 
ing to Sir John Sinclair the artist who invented 
ruffles, the Baronet shrewdly remarked that some 
merit was also due to the man who added the shirt. 

A distinguished living mechanic thus expresses 
himself to the Author on this point : — " Kings, 
warriors, and statesmen have heretofore monopo- 
lized not only the pages of history, but almost those 
of biography. Surely some niche ought to be 
found for the Mechanic, without whose skill and 
labor society, as it is, could not exist. I do not be- 
grudge destructive heroes their fame, but the con- 
structive ones ought not to be forgotten ; and there 
is a heroism of skill and toil belonging to the latter 
class, worthy of as grateful record, — less perilous 
and romantic, it may be, than that of the other, 
but not less full of the results of human energy, 
bravery, and character. The lot of labor is indeed 
often a dull one ; and it is doing a public service to 
endeavor to lighten it up by records of the struggles 
and triumphs of our more illustrious workers, and 
the results of their labors in the cause of human 
advancement. 

As respects the preparation of the following me- 
moirs, the Author's principal task has consisted in 
selecting and arranging the materials so Hberally 



PREFACE. vii 

placed at his disposal by gentlemen for the most 
part personally acquainted with the subjects of 
them, and but for whose assistance the book could 
not have been written. The materials for the 
biography of Henry Maudslay, for instance, have 
been partly supplied by the late Mr. Joshua Field, 
F. R. S. (his partner), but principally by Mr. James 
Nasmyth, C. E., his distinguished pupil. In like 
manner Mr. John Penn, C. E., has supplied the 
chief materials for the memoir of Joseph Clement, 
assisted by Mr. Wilkinson, Clement's nephew. The 
Author has also had the valuable assistance of Mr. 
William Fairbairn, F. R. S., Mr. J. O. March, tool 
manufacturer (Mayor of Leeds), Mr. Richard Rob- 
erts, C. E., Mr. Henry Maudslay, C. E., and Mr. J. 
Kitson, Jr., iron manufacturer, Leeds, in the prep- 
aration of the other memoirs of mechanical engi- 
neers included in this volume. 

The materials for the memoirs of the early iron- 
workers have in like manner been obtained for the 
most part from original sources ; those of the Dar- 
bys and Reynoldses from Mr. Dickinson of Coal- 
brookdale, Mr. William Reynolds of Coed-du, and 
Mr. Wilham Gr. Norris of the former place, as well 
as from Mr. Anstice of Madeley Wood, who has 
kindly supplied the original records of the firm. 
The substance of the biography of Benjamin Hunts- 
man, the inventor of cast-steel, has been furnished 
by his lineal representatives ; and the facts embodied 
in the memoirs of Henry Cort and David Mushet 
have been supplied by the sons of those inyentors. 



viii PREFACE. 

To Mr. Anderson KIrkwood of Glasgow tlie Au- 
thor is indebted for the memoir of James Beau- 
mont Neilson, inventor of the hot blast ; and to Mr. 
Ralph Moore, Inspector of Mines in Scotland, for 
various information relative to the progress of the 
Scotch iron manufacture. 

The memoirs of Dud Dudley and Andrew Yar- 
ranton are almost the only ones of the series in 
preparing which material assistance has been de- 
rived from books ; but these have been largely 
illustrated by facts contained in original documents 
preserved in the State Paper Office, the careful 
examination of which has been conducted by Mr. 
W. Walker Wilkins. 

It will thus be observed that most of the infor- 
mation embodied in this volume, more especially 
that relating to the inventors of tools and machines, 
has heretofore existed only in the memories of the 
eminent mechanical engineers from whom it has 
been collected. The estimable Joshua Field has 
died since the date at which he communicated his 
recollections ; and in a few more years many of the 
facts which have been caught and are here placed 
on record would, probably, in the ordinary course 
of things, have passed into oblivion. As it is, the 
Author feels that there are many gaps yet to be 
filled up ; but the field of Industrial Biography is a 
wide one, and is open to all who will labor in it. 

London, October, 1863. 



CONTEISTTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

Ieon and Civilization. 

Paoes 

The South-Sea Islanders and Iron. — Uses of Iron for Tools. — 
The Stone, Bronze, and Iron Ages. — Eecent Discoveries in 
the Beds of the Swiss Lakes. — Iron the last Metal to come 
into general Use, and why. — The first Iron-Smelters. — Early 
History of Iron in Britain. — The Eomans. — Social Impor- 
tance of the Smith in early Times. — Enchanted Swords. — 
Early Scarcity of Iron in Scotland. — Andrea de Ferrara. — 
Scarcity of Iron in England at the Time of the Armada. — Im- 
portance of Iron for National Defence 17-46 

CHAPTER II. 

Beginnings of the Ieon Manufaottiee in Beitain. 

Iron made in the Forest of Dean in Anglo-Saxon Times. — 
Monkish Iron- workers. — Early Iron-smelting in Yorkshire. 
— Much Iron imported from abroad. — Iron Manufactures of 
Sussex. — Manufacture of Cannon. — Wealthy Ironmasters 
of Sussex. — Founder of the Gale Family. — Extensive Ex- 
ports of English Ordnance. — Destruction of Timber in Iron- 
smelting. — The Manufacture placed under Kestrictions. — 
The Sussex Furnaces blown out 47-64 

CHAPTER III. 
Ieon- Smelting by Pit-Coal. — Dud Dudley. ^ 

Greatly reduced Production of English Iron. — Proposal to use 
Pit-coaJ instead of Charcoal of "Wood in Smelting. — Sturte- 
1* 



CONTENTS. 

vant's Patent. — Eovenson's. — Dud Dudley ; his Family His- 
tory. — Uses Pit-coal to smelt Iron with Success. — Takes out 
his Patent. — The Quality of the Iron proved by Tests. — 
Dudley's Works swept away by a Flood. — Rebuilds his 
Works, and they are destroyed by a Mob. — Renewal of his 
Patent. — Outbreak of the Civil War. — Dudley joins the 
Royalists, and rises to be General of Artillery. — His peril- 
ous Adventures and hair-breadth Escapes. — His Estate con- 
fiscated. — Recommences Iron-smelting. — Various Attempts 
to smelt with Pit-coal. — Dudley's Petitions to the King. — 
His Death •65-84 



CHAPTER IV. 

Andketv Yakrakton. 

A forgotten Patriot. — The Yarranton Family. — Andrew Yar- 
ranton's early Life. — A Soldier under the Parliament. — Be- 
gins Iron- Works. — Is seized and imprisoned. — His Plabs for 
improving Internal Navigation. — Improvements in Agricul- 
ture. — Manufacture of Tin-Plate. — His Journey into Saxony 
to learn it. — Travels in Holland. — His Views of Trade and 
Industry. — His various Projects. — His " England's Improve- 
ment by Sea and Land." — His proposed Land Bank. — His 
proposed Registry of Real Estate. — His Controversies. — 
HLs Iron -Mining. — Value of his Labors .... 85-104 

CHAPTER V. 

COALBEOOKDALE IrON-WoRK3. — ThE DaRBTS AND 

Retnoldses. 

Failure in the Attempts to smelt Iron with Pit-coal. — Dr. Blew- 
stone's Experiment. — Decay of the Iron-Manufacture. — 
Abraham Darby. — His Manufacture of Cast-iron Pots at 
Bristol. — Removes to Coalbrookdale. — His Method of smelt- 
ing Iron. — Increased use of Coke. — Use of Pit-coal by 
Richard Ford. — Richard Reynolds joins the Coalbrookdale 
Firm. — Invention of the Craneges in Iron-refining. — Letter 
of Richard Reynolds on the Subject. — Invention of Cast-iron 
Rails by Reynolds. — Abraham Darby the Second constructs 



CONTENTS. xi 

the first Iron Bridge. — Extension of the Coalbrookdale Works. 
— William Reynolds : his Invention of Inclined Planee for 
working Canals. — Retirement of Richard Reynolds from the 
Firm. — His later Years, Character, and Death . . . 105-130 



CHAPTEE VI. 
Invention of Cast-Steel. — Benjamin Huntsman. 

Conversion of Iron into Steel. — Early Sheffield Manufacttires. 

— Invention of Blistered-steel. — Important uses of Cast-steel. 
Le Play's Writings on the Subject. — Early Career of Ben- 
jamin Huntsman at Doncaster. — His Experiments in Steel- 
making. — Removes to the Neighborhood of Sheffield. — 
His laborious Investigations, Failures, and eventual Success. 

— Process of making Cast-steel. — The Sheffield Manufac- 
turers refuse to use it. — Their Opposition foiled. — How they 
wrested Huntsman's Secret from him. — Important Results of 
the Invention to the Industry of Sheffield. — Henry Bessemer 
and his Process. — Heath's Invention. — Practical Skill of the 
Sheffield Artisans 131-147 

CHAPTEE VII. 

The Inventions of Henry Cort. 

Parentage of Henry Cort. — Becomes a Navy Agent. — State of 
the Iron Trade. — Cort's Experiments in Iron-making. — 
Takes a Foundery at Fontley. — Partnership with JeUicoe. 

— Various Improvers in Iron-making ; Roebuck, Cranege, 
Onions. — Cort's Improved Processes described. — His Patents. 

— His Inventions adopted by Crawshay, Homfray, and other 
Ironmasters. — Cort's Iron approved by the Admiralty. — 
Public Defalcations of Adam JeUicoe, Cort's Partner. — Cort's 
Property and Patents confiscated. — Public Proceedings 
thereon. — Ruin of Henry Cort. — Account of Richard Craw- 
shay, the great Ironmaster. — His early Life. — Ironmonger in 
London. — Starts an Iron-furnace at Merthyr Tydvil. — Pro- 
jects and makes a Canal. — Growth of Merthyr Tydvil and its 
Industry. — Henry Cort the Founder of the Iron Aristocracy, 
himself unrewarded 148-169 



sdi CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER VIII. 

The Scotch Iron MANtrFACTtmE. — Dr. Eoebuok. — 

David Mushet. 

Dr. Eoebnck, a forgotten Public Benefactor. — His Birth and 
Education. — Begins Business as a Physician at Birmingham. 

— Investigations in Metallurgy. — Kemoves to Scotland, and 
begins the Manufacture of Chemicals, &c. — Starts the Carron 
Iron-Works, near Falkirk. — His Invention of refining Iron 
in a Pit-coal Fire. — Embarks in Coal-mining at Borough- , 
etoness. — Residence at Kinneil House. — Pumping-engines 
wanted for his Colliery. — Is introduced to James Watt. — 
Progress of Watt in inventing the Steam-engine. — Interviews 
with Dr. Eoebuck. — Eoebuck becomes a Partner in the 
Steam-engine Patent. — Is involved in DifSculties, and eventu- 
ally ruined. — Advance of the Scotch Iron Trade. — Discovery 
of the Black-band by David Mushet. — Early Career of Mushet. 

— His laborious Experiments. — His Inventions and Discov- 
eries in Iron and Steel, and Death 170-188 



OHAPTER IX. 

Ikventiok of the Hot-Blast. — James Beaumont 

Neilson, 

Difficulty of smelting the Black-band by ordinary Process un- 
til the Invention of the Hot-blast. — Early Career of James 
Beaumont Neilson. — Education and Apprenticeship. — Works 
as an Engine-fireman. — As Colliery Engine-vwight. — Ap- 
pointed Foreman of the Glasgow Gas-works ; afterwards 
Manager and Engineer. — His Self-education. — His Work- 
men's Institute. — His Experiments in Iron-smelting. — Ttials 
with Heated Air in the Blast-furnace. — Incredulity of Iron- 
masters. — Success of his Experiments, and patenting of his 
Process. — His Patent-right disputed and established. — Ex- 
tensive application of the Hot-blast. — Increase of the Scotch 
Iron Trade. — Extraordinary Increase in the Value of Estates 
yielding Black-band. — Scotch Iron Aristocracy . .189- 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER X. 

Mechanical Inventions and Inventors. 

Tools and Civilization. — The Beginnings of Tools. — Dexterity 
of Hand chiefly relied on. — Opposition to Manufacturing 
Machines. — Gradual Process of Invention. — The Human 
Eace the true Inventor. — Obscure Origin of many Inventions. 

— Inventions born before their Time. — " Nothing new under 
the Sun." — The Power of Steam known to the Ancients. — 
Passage from Eoger Bacon. — Old Inventions revived. — 
Printing. — Atmospheric Locomotion. — The Balloon. — The 
Reaping-machine. — Tunnels. — Gunpowder. — Ancient Fire- 
arms. — The Steam-gun. — The Congreve Rocket. — Coal- 
gas. — Hydropathy. — Anaesthetic Agents. — The Daguerrotype 
anticipated. — The Electric Telegraph not new. — Forgotten 
Inventors. — Disputed Inventions. — Simultaneous Inventions. 

— Inventions made Step by Step. — James Watt's Difficulties 
with his Workmen. — Improvements in Modem Machine- 
tools. — Their Perfection. — The Engines of " The War- 
rior" 20' 



CHAPTER XI. 

Joseph Bbamah. 

The Inventive Faculty. — Joseph Bramah's early Life. — His 
Amateur Work. — Apprenticed to a Carpenter. — Starts as a 
Cabinet-maker in London. — Takes out a Patent for his Water- 
closet. — Makes Pumps and Iron- work. — Invention of his 
Lock. — Invents Tools required in Lock-making. — Invents his 
Hydrostatic-machine. — His Hydraulic-press. — The Leathern 
Collar invented by Henry Maudslay. — Bramah's other Inven.. 
tions. — His Fire-engine. — His Beer-pump. — Improvements 
in the Steam-engine. — His Improvements in Machine-tools. 
— His Number-printing Machine. — His Pen-cutter. — His 
Hydraulic Machinery. — Practices as Civil Engineer. — Alter- 
cation with WiUiam Huntington, " S. S." — Bramah's Char- 
acter and Death 22! 



P 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER Xir. 

Heney Matjdslat. 

The Maudslays. — Henry Maudslay. — Employed as Powder- 
boy in "Woolwicli Arsenal. — Advanced to the Blacksmiths' 
Shop. — His early Dexterity in Smith-'work. — His " Trivet "- 
making. — Employed by Bramah. — Proves himself a First- 
class "Workman. — Advanced to be Foreman of the Works. — 
His Inventions of Tools required for Lock-making. — His 
Invention of the Leathern Collar in the Hydraulic-press. — 
Leaves Bramah's Service and begins Business for himself. 
— His first Smithy in Wells Street. — His first Job. — Inven- 
tion of the Slide-Lathe. — Resume of the History of the 
Turning-lathe. — Imperfection of Tools about the Middle 
of last Centiiry. — The Hand-lathe. — Great Advantages 
of the Slide-rest. — First extensively used in constructing 
Bnmel's Block-machinery. — Memoir of Brunei. — Manufac- 
ture of Ships'-blocks. — Sir S. Bentham's Specifications. — 
Introduction of Brunei to Maudslay. — The Block-machinery 
made, and its Success. — Increased Operations of the Firm. — 
Improvements in the Steam-engine. — Invention of the 
Punching-machine. — Further Improvements in the Slide- 
lathe. — Screw-cutting Machine. — Maudslay a dexterous 
and thoughtful Workman. — His Character described by his 
Pupil, James Nasmyth. — Anecdotes and Traits! — Mauds- 
lay's Works a First-class School for Workmen. — His Mode 
of estimating Character. — His Death .... 245- 

CHAPTBR XIII. 

Joseph Clement. 

Skill in Contrivance a Matter of Edutation. — Birth and Parent- 
age of Joseph Clement. — Apprenticed to the Trade of a 
Slater. — His SkiU in Amateur Work. — Makes a Turning- 
lathe. — Gives up Slating, and becomes a Mechanic. — 
Employed at Kirby Stephen in making Power-looms. — 
Eemoves to Carlisle. — Glasgow. — Peter Nicholson teaches 
him Drawing. — Eemoves to Aberdeen. — Works as a Me- 
chanic and attends College. — London. — Employed by Alex- 
ander Galloway. — Employed by Bramah. — Advanced- to be 



CONTENTS. : 

Foreman. — Draughtsman at Maudslay and Field's. — Begins 
Business on his own Account. — His Skill as a Mechanical 
Draughtsman. — Invents his Drawing Instrument. — His Draw- 
ing-table. — His Improvements in the Self-acting Lathe. — 
His Double-driving Centre-chuck and Two-armed Driver. — 
His Fluted Taps and Dies. — Invention of his Planing-machine. 
'— Employed to make Babbage's Calculating-machine. — 
ResurnA of the History of Apparatus for Making Calculations. 
— Babbage's Engine proceeded with. — Its great Cost. — In- 
terruption of the Work. — Clement's Steam- whistles. — Makes 
an Organ. — Character and Death 289-3 

CHAPTEE XIV. 

Fox OP Derby. — MuKEAY of Leeds. — Robeets and 
Whitwoeth of Manchestee. 

The first Fox of Derby originally a Butler. — His Genius for 
Mechanics. — Begins Business as a Machinist. — Invents a 
Planing-machine. — Matthew Murray's Planing-machine. — 
Murray's early Career. — Employed as a Blacksmith by Mar- 
shall of Leeds. — His Improvements of Flax-machinery. — 
Improvements in Steam-engines. — Makes the first Working 
Locomotive for Mr. Blenkinsop. — Invents the Heckling- 
machme. — His Improvements in Tools. — Eichard Eoberts of 
Manchester. — First a Quarryman, next a Pattern-maker. — 
Drawn for the Militia, and flies. — His Travels. — His first 
Employment at Manchester. — Goes to London, and works 
at Maudslay's. — Roberts's numerous Inventions. — Invents a 
Planing-machine. — The Self-acting Mule. — Iron Billiard- 
tables. — Improvements in the Locomotive. — Invents the 
Jacquard Punching-machine. — Makes Turret-clocks and 
Electro-magnets. — Improvement in Screw-steamships. — 
Mr. Whitworth's Improvement of the Planing-machine. — 
His Method of securing True Surfaces. — His great Mechani- 
cal SkiU o 314-8 

CHAPTER XV. 

James Nasmtth. 

Traditional Origin of the Naesmyths. — Alexander Nasmyth the 
Painter, and his Family. — Early Years of James Nasmyth. — 



XVI CONTENTS. 

The Story of his Life told by himself. — Becomes a Pupil of 
Henry Maudslay. — How he lived and worked in London. — 
Begins Business at Manchester. — Story of the Invention of 
the Steam-hammer. — The important Uses of the Hammer 
in Modern Engineering. — Invents the Steam Pile-driving 
Machine. — Designs a new Form of Steam-engine. — Other 
Inventions. — How he "Scotched" a Strike. — Uses of 
Strikes. — Retirement from Business. — Skill as a Draughts- 
man. — Curious Speculations on Antiquarian Subjects. — Mr. 
Nasmyth's Wonderful Discoveries in Astronomy described by 
Sir John Herschel . . . . . . . .333-360 

CHAPTER XVI. 

William Faikbairn. 

Summary of Progress in Machine-tools. — William Fairbaim's 
early Years. — His Education. — Life in the Highlands. — Be- 
gins Work at Kelso Bridge. — An Apprentice at Percy Main ■ 
Colliery, North Shields. — Diligent Self-culture. — Voyage to 
London. — Adventures. — Prevented obtaining Work by the 
Millwrights' Union. — Travels into the Country, finds Work, 
and returns to London. — His first Order, to make a Sausage- 
chopping Machine. — Wanderschaft. — Makes Nail-machinery 
for a Dublin Employer. — Proceeds to Manchester, where he 
settles and marries. — Begins Business. — His first Job. — 
Partnership with Mr. Lillie. — Employed by Messrs. Adam 
Murray & Co. — Employed by Messrs. MacConnel and Ken- 
nedy. — Progress of the Cotton Trade. — Memoir of John 
Kennedy. — Mr. Fairbairn introduces great Improvements in 
the Gearing, &c., of Mill Machinery. — Increasing Business. 
— Improvements in Water-wheels. — Experiments as to the 
Law of Traction of Boats. — Begins building Iron Ships. — 
Experiments on the Strength of Wrought-iron. — Britannia 
and Conway Tubular Bridges. — Eeports on Iron. — On Boiler 
Explosions. — Iron Construction. — Extended Use of Iron. — 
Its Importance in Civilization. — Opinion of Mr. Cobden. — 
Importance of Modern Machine-tools. — Conclusion . 361 - 400 



Index 



INDUSTRIAL BIOGRAPHY. 



CHAPTER I. 

Iron and Civilization. 

" Iron is not only the soul of every other manufacture, but the mainspring 
perhaps of civilized society." — Francis Horner. 

" Were the use of Iron lost among us, we should in a few ages be unavoidably 
reduced to the wants and ignorance of the ancient savage Americans; so that he 
who first made Itnown the use of that contemptible mineral may be truly styled 
the father of Arts and the author of Plenty." —John Locks. 

When Captain Cook and the early navigators first 
sailed into the South Seas on their voyages of discovery, 
one of the things that struck them with most surprise was 
the avidity which the natives displayed for iron. " Noth- 
ing would go down with our visitors," says Cook, " but 
metal ; and iron was their beloved article." A nail 
would buy a good-sized pig ; and on one occasion the nav- 
igator bought some four hundred pounds weight of fish 
for a few wretched knives improvised out of an old hoop. 

" For iron tools," says Captain Carteret, " we might 
have purchased everything upon the Freewill Islands that 
we could have brought away. A few pieces of old iron 
hoop presented to one of the natives threw him into an 
ecstasy little short of distraction." At Otaheite the 
people were found generally well-behaved and honest; 
but they were not proof against the fascinations of iron. 
Captain Cook says that one of them, after resisting all 



18 INDUSTRIAL BIOGEAPHY. 

other temptations, " was at length ensnared by the 
charms of a basket of nails." Another lurked about for 
several days, watching the opportunity to steal a coal- 
rake. 

The navigators found they could pay their way from 
island to island merely with scraps of iron, which were as 
useful for the purpose as gold coins would have been in 
Europe. The drain, however, being continuous, Captain 
Cook became alarmed at finding his currency almost ex- 
hausted ; and he relates his joy on recovering an old 
anchor which the French Captain Bougainville had lost 
at Bolabola, on which he felt as an English banker would 
do after a severe run upon him for gold, when suddenly 
placed in possession of a fresh store of bullion. 

The avidity for iron displayed by these poor islanders 
will not be wondered at when we consider that whoever 
among them was so fortunate as to obtain possession of an 
old naU, immediately became a man of greater power than 
his fellows, and assumed the rank of a capitalist. " An 
Otaheitan chief," says Cook, " who had got two nails in 
his possession, received no small emolument by letting out 
the use of them to his neighbors, for the purpose of boring 
holes when their own methods failed, or were thought too 
tedious." 

The native methods referred to by Cook were of a very 
clumsy sort ; the principal tools of the Otaheitans being 
of wood, stone, and flint. Their adzes and axes were of 
stone. The gouge most commonly used by them was 
made out of the bone of the human forearm. Their sub- 
stitute for a knife was a shell, or a bit of flint or jasper. 
A shark's tooth, fixed to a piece of wood, served for an 
auger ; a piece of coral for a file ; and the skin of a sting- 
ray for a polisher. Their saw was made of jagged fishes' 



IRON AND CIVILIZATION. 19 

teeth fixed on the convex edge of a piece of hard wood. 
Theii- weapons were of a similarly rude description ; their 
clubs and axes were headed with stone, and their lances 
and arrows were tipped .with flint. Fire was another 
agency employed by them, usually in boat-building. 
Thus, the New Zealanders, whose tools were also of 
stone, wood, or bone, made their boats of the trunks of 
trees hollowed out by fire. 

The stone implements were fashioned, Captain Cook 
says, by rubbing one stone upon another, until brought to 
the required shape ; but, after all, they were found very 
inefficient for their purpose. They soon became blunted 
and useless ; and the laborious process of makmg new 
tools had to be begun again. The delight of the islanders 
at being put in possession of a material which was capable 
of taking a comparatively sharp edge and keeping it, may 
therefore readily be imagined ; and hence the remarkable 
incidents to which we have referred in the experience 
of the early voyagers. In the minds of the natives, 
iron became the representative of power, efficiency, and 
wealth ; and they were ready almost to fall down and 
worship their new tools, esteeming the axe as a deity, 
ofiering sacrifices to the saw, and holding the knife in 
especial veneration. 

In the infancy of all nations the same difficulties must 
have been experienced for want of tools, before the arts 
of smelting and working in metals had become known ; 
and it is not improbable that the Phoenician navigators 
who first frequented our coasts found the same avidity for 
bronze and iron existing among the poor woad-stained 
Britons who flocked down to the shore to see their ships 
and exchange food and skins with them, that Captain 
Cook discovered more than two thousand years later 



20 INDUSTEIAL BIOGEAPHY. 

among tte natives of Otaheite and New Zealand. For, 
the tools and weapons found in ancient burjing-places in 
all parts of Britain, clearly show that these islands also 
have passed through the epoch of stone and flint. 

There was recently exhibited at the Crystal Palace a 
collection of ancient European weapons and implements 
placed alongside a similar collection of articles brought 
from the South Seas ; and they were in most respects so 
much alike that it was difficult to believe that they did not 
belong to the same race and period, instead of being the 
implements of races sundered by half the globe, and 
living at periods more than two thousand years apart. 
Nearly every weapon in the one collection had its coun- 
terpart in the other, — the mauls or celts of stone, the 
spearheads of flint or jasper, the arrowheads of flint or 
bone, and the saws of jagged stone, showing how human 
ingenuity, under like circumstances, had resorted to like 
expedients. It would also appear that the ancient tribes 
in these islands, like the New Zealanders, used fire to 
hollow out their larger boats ; several specimens of this 
kind of vessel having recently been dug up in the valleys 
of the Witham and the Clyde, some of the latter from 
under the very streets of modern Glasgow.* Their 
smaller boats, or coracles, were made of osiers inter- 
woven, covered with hides, and rigged with leathern sails 
and thong tackle. 

* " Mr. John Buchanan, a zealous antiquary, writing in 1855, in- 
forms us that in the course of the eighty years preceding that date, no 
less than seventeen canoes had been dug out of this estuarine silt [of 
the valley of the Clyde], and that he had pei-sonally inspected a large 
number of them before they were exhumed. Five of them lay buried 
in silt under the streets of Glasgow, one in a vertical position with the 
prow uppermost, as if it had sunk in a storm. . . . Almost every one 
of these ancient boats was formed out of a single oak-stem, hollowed 



lEON AND CIVILIZATION. 21 

It will readily be imagined that anything like civiliza- 
tion, as at present understood, must have been next to 
impossible under such circumstances. "Miserable in- 
deed," says Carlyle, " was the condition of the aboriginal 
savage, glaring fiercely from under his fleece of hair, 
which with the beard reached down to his loins, and 
hung round them like a matted cloak ; the rest of his 
body sheeted in its thick natural feU. He loitered in the 
sunny glades of the forest, living on wild fruits ; or, as 
the ancient Qaledoniaus, squatted himself in morasses, 
lurking for his bestial or human prey ; without imple- 
ments, without arms, save the baU of heavy flint, to 
which, that his sole possession and defence might not be 
lost, he had attached a long cord of plaited thongs ; 
thereby recovering as well as hurhng it with deadly, 
unerring skill." 

The injunction given to man to " replenish the earth 
and subdue it " could not possibly he fulfilled with imple- 
ments of stone. To fell a tree with a flint hatchet would 
occupy the labor of a month, and to clear a small patch 
of ground for purposes of culture would require the com- 
bined efibrts of a tribe. For the same reason, dwellings 
could not be erected ; and without dwellings domestic 
tranquillity, security, culture, and refinement, especially 
in a rude climate, were all but impossible. Mr. Emerson 
well observes, that " the effect of a house is immense on 

out by blunt tools, probably stone axes, aided by the action of fire ; a 
few were cut beautifully smooth, evidently with metallic tools. Hence 
a gi-adation could be traced from a pattern of extreme rudeness to 
one showing great mechanical ingenuity. ... In one of the canoes a 
beautifully polished celt or axe of greenstone was found; in the bot- 
tom of another a plug of cork, which, as Mr. Geikie remarks, ' could 
only have come from the latitudes of Spain, Southern France, or 
Italy.' " — Sir C. Lyell, Antiquity of Man, 48, 49. 



22 INDUSTEIAL BIOGEAPHY. 

human tranquillity, power, and refinement. A man in a 
cave or a camp — a nomad — dies with no more estate 
than the wolf or the horse leaves. But so simple a labor 
as a house being achieved, his chief enemies are kept at 
bay. He is safe from the teeth of wild animals, from 
frost, sunstroke, and weather ; and fine faculties begin to 
yield their fine harvest. Inventions and arts are born, 
manners, and social beauty and dehght." But to build a 
house which should serve for shelter, for safety, and for 
comfort — in a word, as a home for the family, which is 
the nucleus of society — better tools than those of stone 
were absolutely indispensable. 

Hence most of the early European tribes were no- 
madic : first hunters, wandering about from place to place 
like the American Indians, after the game ; then shep- 
herds, following the herds of animals, which they had 
learnt to tame, from one grazing-ground to another, living 
upon their milk and flesh, and clothing themselves in their 
skins, held together by leathern thongs. It was only 
when implements of metal had been invented that it was 
possible to practise the art of agriculture with any con- 
siderable success. Then tribes would cease from their 
wanderings, and begin to form settlements, homesteads, 
villages, and towns. An old Scandinavian legend thus 
curiously illustrates this last period : — There was a 
giantess whose daughter one day saw a husbandman 
ploughing in the field. She ran and picked him up with 
her finger and thumb, put him and his plough and oxen 
into her apron, and carried them to her mother, saying, 
" Mother, what sort of beetle is this that I have found 
wriggling in the sand ? " But the mother said, " Put it 
away, my chUd ; we must begone out of this land, for 
these people will dwell in it." 



IRON AND CIVILIZATION. 23 

M. Worsaae of Copenhagen, who has been followed by 
other antiquaries, has even gone so far as to divide the 
natural history of civilization into three epochs, according 
to the character of the tools used in each. The first was 
the Stone period, in which the implements chiefly used 
were sticks, bones, stones, and flints. The next was the 
Bronze period, distinguished by the introduction and gen- 
eral use of a- metal composed of copper and tin, requiring 
a comparatively low degree of temperature to smelt it, 
and render it capable of beiag fashioned into weapons, 
tools, and implements ; to make which, however, indicated 
a great advance in experience, sagacity, and skill in the 
manipulation of metals. With tools of bronze, to which 
considerable hardness could be given, trees were felled, 
stones hewn, houses and ships built, and agriculture prac- 
tised with comparative facility. Last of all came the 
Iron period, when the art of smelting and working that 
most difficult but widely diffused of the minerals was dis- 
covered ; from which point the progress made in all the 
arts of Hfe has been of the most remarkable character. 

Although Mr. Wright rejects this classification as 
empirical, because the periods are not capable of being 
clearly defined, and all the three kinds of implements are 
found to have been in use at or about the same time,* 
there is, nevertheless, reason to believe that it is, on the 
whole, well founded. It is doubtless true that imple- 
ments of stone continued in use long after those of bronze 
and iron had been invented, arising most probably from 
the deamess and scarcity of articles of metal ; but when 
the art of smelting and working in iron and steel had 
sufficiently advanced, the use of stone, and afterwards of 
bronze tools and weapons, altogether ceased. 

* Thomas Weight, F. S. A., The Celt, the Roman, and the Saxon, 
ed. 1861. 



24 INDUSTEIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

The views of M. Worsaae, and the other Continental 
antiquarians who follow his classification, have indeed re- 
ceived remarkable confirmation of late years, by the dis- 
coveries which have been made in the beds of most of the 
Swiss lakes.* It appears that a subsidence took place in 
the waters of the Lake of Zurich in the year 1854, lay- 
ing bare considerable portions of its bed. The adjoining 
proprietors proceeded to enclose the new land, and began 
by erecting permanent dikes to prevent the return of the 
waters. While carrying on the works, several rows of 
stakes were exposed ; and on digging down, the laborers 
turned up a number of pieces of charred wood, stones 
blackened by fire, utensUs, bones, and other articles, show- 
ing that at some remote period, a number of human be- 
ings had lived over the spot, in dwellings supported by 
stakes driven into the bed of the lake. 

The discovery having attracted attention, explorations 
were made at other places, and it was shortly found that 
there was scarcely a lake in Switzerland which did not 
yield similar evidence of the existence of an ancient La- 
custrine or Lake-dwelling population. Numbers of their 
tools and implements were brought to light, — stone axes 
and saws, flint arrowheads, bone needles, and such like, — 
mixed with the bones of wild animals slain in the chase ; 
pieces of old boats, portions of twisted branches, bark, 
and rough planking, of which their dwellings had been 
formed, the latter still bearing the marks of the rude tools 
by which they had been laboriously cut. In the most 
ancient, or lowest series of deposits, no traces of metal, 
either of bronze or iron, were discovered ; and it is most 
probable that these lake-dweUers lived in as primitive a 

* Referred to at length in the Antiquity of Man, by Sir C. Lyell, 
who adopts M. Worsaae's classification. 



IRON AND CIVILIZATION. 25 

state as the Soutli Sea islanders discovered bj Captain 
Cook, and that the huts over the water in which they 
lived resembled those found in Papua and Borneo, and 
the islands of the Salomon group, to this day. 

These aboriginal Swiss lake-dwellers seem to have 
been succeeded by a race of men using tools, implements, 
and ornaments of bronze. In some places the remains 
of this bronze period directly overlay those of the stone 
period, showing the latter to have been the most ancient ; 
but in others, the village sites are altogether distinct. 
The articles with which the metal implements are inter- 
mixed, show that considerable progress had been made in 
the useful arts. The potter's wheel had been introduced. 
Agriculture had begun, and wild animals had given place 
to tame ones. The abundance of bronze also shows that 
commerce must have existed to a certain extent ; for tin, 
which enters into its composition, is a comparatively rare 
metal, and must necessarily have been imported from 
other European countries. 

The Swiss antiquarians ai'e of opinion that the men of 
bronze suddenly invaded and extirpated the men of flint ; 
and that at soine still later pei'iod, another stronger and 
more skilful race, supposed to have been Celts from Gaul, 
came armed with iron weapons, to whom the men of 
bronze succumbed, or with whom, more probably, they 
gradually intermingled. When iron, or rather steel, came 
into use, its superiority in aflFording a cutting edge was so 
decisive that it seems to have supplanted bronze almost 
at once;* the latter metal continuing to be employed 

* Mr. Mushet, however, observes that " the general use of hardened 
copper by the ancients for edge-tools and warlike instruments does not 
preclude the supposition that iron was then comparatively plentiful, 
though it is probable that it was confined tp the ruder arts of life. A 



26 INDUSTRIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

only for the purpose of making scabbards or sword-ban- 
dies. Shortly after the commencement of tbe iron age, 
tbe lake habitations were abandoned, the only settlement 
of this later epoch yet discovered being that at Tene, on 
Lake Neufchatel : and it is a remarkable circumstance, 
showing the great antiquity of the lake-dwellings, that 
they are not mentioned by any of the Roman historians. 

That iron should have been one of the last of the metals 
to come into general use, is partly accounted for by the 
circumstance that iron, though one of the most generally 
diffused of minerals, never presents itself in a natural 
state, except in meteorites ; and that to recognize its ores, 
and then to separate the metal from its matrix, demands 
the exercise of no small amount of observation and inven- 
tion. Persons unacquainted with minerals would be un- 
able to discover the slightest affinity between the rough 
iron-stone as brought up from the mine, and the iron or 
steel of commerce. To unpractised eyes they would 
seem to possess no properties in common, and it is only 
after subjecting the stone to severe processes of manufac- 
ture that usable metal can be obtained from it. The 

knowledge of the mixture of copper, tin, and zinc seems to have been 
among the first discoveries of the metallurgist. Instruments fabricated 
from these alloys, recommended by the use of ages, the perfection of 
the art, the splendor and polish of their surfaces, not easily injured by 
time and weather, would not soon be superseded by the inventioi:^)f 
simple iron, inferior in edge and polish, at all times easily injured by 
rust, and in the early stages of its manufacture converted with difG- 
culty into forms that required proportion or elegance." — [Papers on 
Iron and Steel, 365, 366.) By some secret method that has been lost, 
perhaps because no longer needed since the invention of steel, the an- 
cients manufactured bronze tools capable of taking a fine edge. In 
our own time, Chantrey the sculptor, in his i-everence for classic me- 
tallurgy, had a bronze razor made, with which he martyred himself in 
shaving ; but none were found so hardy and devoted as to follow his 
example. 



IRON AND CIVILIZATION. 27 

effectual reduction of tlie ore requires an intense heat, 
maintained by artificial methods, such as furnaces and 
blowing apparatus.* But it is principally in combination 
with other elements that iron is so valuable when com- 
pared with other metals. Thus, when combined with 
carbon, in varying proportions, substances are produced, 
so different, but each so valuable, that they might almost 
be regarded in the light of distinct metals, — such, for 
example, as cast-iron, and cast and bar steel ; the various 
qualities of iron enabling it to be used for purposes so 
opposite as a steel pen and a railroad, the needle of a 
mariner's compass and an Armstrong gim, a surgeon's 
lancet and a steam-engine, the mainspring of a watch and 
an iron ship, a pair of scissors and a Nasmyth hammer, a 
lad/s earrings and a tubular bridge. 

The variety of purposes to which iron is thus capable 
of being applied renders it of more use to mankind than 
all the other metals combined. Unlike iron, gold is 
found pure, and in an almost workable state ; and at an 
early period in history, it seems to have been much more 
plentiful than iron or steel. But gold was unsuited for 
the purposes of tools, and would serve for neither a saw, a 
chisel, an axe, nor a sword ; whilst tempered steel could 
answer all these purposes. Hence we find the early war- 
like nations making the backs of their swords of gold or 
copper, and economizing their steel to form the cutting 
edge. This is illustrated by many ancient Scandinavian 
weapons in the museum at Copenhagen, which indicate 
the greatest parsimony in the use of steel at a period 

* It may be mentioned, in passing, that while Zinc is fasible at 3o 
of "Wedgwood's pjTometer, Silver at 22°, Copper at 27°, and Gold at 
32°, Cast Iron is only fusible at 130°. Tin (one of the constituents 
of the ancient bronze) and Lead are fusible at much lower degrees 
than zinc. 



28 INDUSTRIAL BIOGEAPHY. 

when both gold and copper appear to have been compara- 
tively abundant. 

The knowledge of smelting and working in iron, like 
most other arts, came from the East. Iron was especially 
valued for purposes of war, of which indeed it was re- 
garded as the symbol, being called " Mars " by the Eo- 
mans.* "We find frequent mention of it in the Bible. 
One of the earliest notices of the metal is in connection 
with the conquest of Judaea by the Philistines. To com- 
plete the subjection of the Israelites, their conquerors 
made captive aU the smiths of the land, and carried them 
away. The Philistines felt that their hold of the country 
was insecure so long as the inhabitants possessed the 
means of forging weapons. Hence " there was no smith 
found throughout all the land of Israel ; for the Philis- 
tines said. Lest the Hebrews make them swords or 
spears. But the Israelites went down .to the Philistines, 
to sharpen every man his share, and his coulter, and his 
axe, and his mattock." f At a later period, when Jeru- 
salem was taken by the Babylonians, one of their first 
acts was to carry the smiths and other craftsmen captives 
to Babylon.l Deprived of their armorers, the Jews were 
rendered comparatively powerless. 

It was the knowledge of the art of iron-forging which 
laid the foundation of the once great empire of the Turks. 
Gibbon relates that these people were originally the de- 
spised slaves of the powerful Khan of the Geougen. 
They occupied certain districts of the mountain-ridge in 

* The Romans named the other metals after the gods. Thus Quick- 
silver was called Mercury, Lead Saturn, Tin Jupiter, Copper Venus, 
Silver Luna, and so on ; and our own language has received a coloring 
from the Roman nomenclature, which it continues to retain. 

t 1 Samuel xiii. 19, 20. 

X 2 Kings xxiv. 16. 



IRON AND CIVILIZATION. 29 

the centre of Asia, called Imaus, Caf, and Altai, wMch 
yielded iron in large quantities. This metal the Turks 
were employed by the Khan to forge for his use in war. 
A bold leader arose among them, who persuaded the iron- 
workers that the arms which they forged for their masters 
might in their own hands become the instruments of 
freedom. Sallying forth from their mountains, they set up 
their standard, and their weapons soon freed them. For 
centuries after, the Turkish nation continued to celebrate 
the event of their liberation by an annual ceremony, in 
which a piece of iron was heated in the fire, and a smith's 
hammer was successively handled by the prince and his 
nobles. 

We can only conjecture how the art of smelting iron 
was discovered. Who first applied fire to the ore, and 
made it plastic ; who discovered. fire itself, and its uses in 
metallurgy? No one can tell. Tradition says that the 
metal was discovered through the accidental burning of a 
wood in Greece. IMr. Mushet thinks it more probable 
that the discovery was made on the conversion of wood 
into charcoal for culinary or chamber purposes. " If a 
mass of ore," he says, " accidentally dropped into the 
middle of the burning pile during a period of neglect, or 
during the existence of a thorough draught, a mixed mass, 
partly earthy and partly metallic, would be obtained, pos- 
sessing ductility and extension under pressure. But if 
the conjecture is pushed still further, and we suppose that 
the ore was not an oxide, but rich in iron, magnetic or 
spicular, the result would in all probability be a mass of 
perfectly malleable iron. I have seen this fact illustrated 
in the roasting of a species of iron-stone, which was unit- 
ed with a considerable mass of bituminous matter. After 
a high temperature had been excited in the interior of the 



30 INDUSTRIAL BIOGEAPHY. ^ 

pile, plates of malleable iron of a tougli and flexible na- 
ture were formed, and under circumstances where there 
was no fuel but that furnished by the ore itself." * 

The metal once discovered, many attempts would be 
made to give to that which had been the effect of accident 
a more unerring result. The smelting of ore in an open 
heap of wood or charcoal being found tedious and waste- 
ful, as well as uncertain, would naturally lead to the in- 
vention of a furnace, with the object of keeping the ore 
surrounded as much as possible with fuel while the pro- 
cess of conversion into iron was going forward. The low 
conical furnaces employed at this day by some of the 
tribes of Central and Southern Africa are perhaps very 
much the same in character as those adopted by the early 
tribes of all countries where iron was first made. Small 
openings at the lower end of the cone to admit the air, 
and a larger orifice at the top, would, with charcoal, be 
sufficient to produce the requisite degree of heat for the 
reduction of the ore. To tliis the foot-blast was added, 
as still used in Ceylon and in India ; and afterwards the 
water-blast, as employed in Spain (where it is known as 
the Catalan forge), along the coasts of the Mediterranean, 
and in some parts of America. 

It is worthy of remark, that the ruder the method em- 
ployed for the reduction of the ore, the better the quality 
of the iron usually is. "Where the art is little advanced, 
only the most tractable ores are selected ; and as char- 
coal is the only fuel used, the quality of the metal is al- 
most invariably excellent. The ore being long exposed 
to the charcoal fire, and the quantity made small, the 
result is a metal having many of the qualities of steel, 
capable of being used for weapons or tools after a com- 

* Papers on Iron and Steel, 363, 364. 



lEON AND CIVILIZATION. 31 

paratively small amount of forging. Dr. Livingstone 
speaks of the excellent quality of the iron made by the 
African tribes on the Zambesi, who refuse to use ordinary 
EngHsh iron, which they consider " rotten." * Du Chaillu 
also says of the Fans, that, in making their best knives 
and arrowheads, they will not use European or American 
iron, greatly preferring their own. The celebrated wootz 
or steel of India, made in little cakes of only about two 
pounds weight, possesses qualities which no European 
steel can surpass. Out of this material the famous Da- 
mascus sword-blades were made ; and its use for so long 
a period is perhaps one of the most striking proofs of the 
ancient civilization of India. 

The early history of iron in Britain is necessarily very 
obscure. When the Romans invaded the country, the 
metal seems to have been already known to the tribes 
along the coast. The natives had probably smelted it 
themselves in their rude bloomeries, or obtained it from 
the Phoenicians in small quantities in exchange for skins 
and food, or tin. We must, however, regard the stories 
told of the ancient British chariots armed -with swords or 
scythes as altogether apocryphal. The existence of iron 
in sufficient quantity to be used for such a purpose is 
incompatible with contemporary facts, and unsupported 
by a single vestige remainiag to our time. The country 
was then mostly forest, and the roads did not as yet exist 
upon which chariots could be used ; whilst iron was too 
scarce to be mounted as scythes upon chariots, when the 

* Dr. Livingstone brought with him to England a piece of the Zam- 
besi iron, which he sent to a skilled Birmingham blacksmith to test. 
The result was, that he pronounced the metal as strongly resembling 
Swedish or Kussian ; both of which kinds are smelted with charcoal. 
The African iron was found " highly carbonized," and " when chilled 
it possessed the properties of steel." 



32 INDUSTEIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

warriors themselves wanted it for swords. The orator 
Cicero, in a letter to Trebatius, then serving with the 
army in Britain, sarcastically advised him to capture and 
convey one of these vehicles to Italy for exhibition ; but 
we do not hear that any specimen of the British war- 
chariot Avas ever seen in Rome. 

It is only in the tumuli along the coast, or in those of 
the Romano-British period, that iron implements are ever 
found ; whilst in the ancient burying-places of the interior 
of the country they are altogether wanting. Herodian 
says of the British pursued by Severus through the fens 
and marshes of the east coast, that they wore iron hoops 
round their middles and their necks, esteeming them as 
ornaments and tokens of riches, in like manner as other 
barbarous people then esteemed ornaments of silver and 
gold. Their only money, according to Caesar, consisted 
of pieces of brass or iron, reduced to a certain standard 
weight.* It is particularly important to observe, says 
M. Worsaae, that all the antiquities which have hitherto 
been found in the large burying-places of the Iron period, 
in Switzerland, Bavaria, Baden, France, England, and the 
North, exhibit traces more or less of Roman influence.! 

The Romans themselves used weapons of bronze when 
they could not obtain iron in sufficient quantity, and many 
of the Roman weapons dug out of the ancient tumuli are 
of that metal. They possessed the art of tempering and 
hardening bronze to such a degree as to enable them to 

* HoLiNSHED, I. 517. Iron was a]so the cuiTency of the Spartans, 
but it has been used as such in much more recent times. Adam 
Smith, in his Wealth of Nations (Book I. ch. 4, published in 1776), 
says : " There is at this day a village in Scotland where it is not un- 
common, I am told, for a workman to carry nails, instead of money, to 
the baker's shop or the alehouse." 

t Primeval Antiquities of Demnarh. London, 1849, p. 140. 



IRON AND CIVILIZATION. 33 

manufacture swords "with it of a pretty good edge; ajid in 
those countries which they penetrated, their bronze im- 
plements gradually supplanted those which had been pre- 
viously fashioned of stone. Great quantities of bronze 
tools have been found in different parts of England, — 
sometimes in heaps, as if they had been thrown away in 
basketfuls as things of little value. It has been conjec- 
tured that when the Romans came into Britain they found 
the inhabitants, especially those to the northward, in very 
nearly the same state as Captain Cook and other voyagers 
found the inhabitants of the South Sea Islands ; that the 
Britons parted with their food and valuables for tools of 
inferior metal made in imitation of their stone ones ; but 
finding themselves cheated by the Romans, as the natives 
of Otaheite have been cheated by Europeans, the Britons 
relinquished the bad tools when they became acquaiated 
with articles made of better metal.* 

The Roman colonists were the first makers of iron in 
Britain on any large scale. They availed themselves of 
the mineral riches of the country wherever they went. 
Every year brings their extraordinary industrial activity 
more clearly to light. They not only occupied the best 
sites for trade, intersected the land with a complete sys- 
tem of well-constructed roads, studded our hills and val- 
leys with towns, villages, and pleasure-houses, and availed 
themselves of our medicinal springs for purposes of baths 
to an extent not even exceeded at this day, but they ex- 
plored our mines and quarries, and carried on the smelt- 
ing and manufacture of metals in nearly all parts of the 
island. The heaps of mining refuse left by them in the 

* Seo Dr. Pearson's paper in the Philosophical Transactions, 1796, 
relative to certain ancient arms and utensils found in the river Witham, 
between Kirkstead and Lincoln. 

2* C 



34 . INDUSTRIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

valleys and along the hillsides of North Derbyshire are 
still spoken of by the country people as " old man," or the 
" old man's work." Year by year, from Dartmoor to the 
Moray Firth, the plough turns up fresh traces of their 
indefatigable industry and enterprise, in pigs of lead, im- 
plements of iron and bronze, vessels of pottery, coins, and 
sculpture ; and it is a remarkable circumstance that in 
several districts where the existence of extensive iron 
beds had not been dreamt of until within the last twenty 
years, as in Northamptonshire and North Yorkshire, the 
remains of ancient workings recently discovered show that 
the Roman colonists were fully acquainted with them. 

But the principal iron mines worked by that people 
were those which were most conveniently situated for 
purposes of exportation, more especially in the southern 
counties and on the- borders of "Wales. The extensive cin- 
der-heaps found in the Forest of Dean, — which formed 
the readiest resource of the modern iron-smelter when 
improved processes enabled him to reduce them, — show 
that their principal iron manufactures were carried on in 
that quarter.* It is indeed matter of history, that about 
seventeen hundred years since (A. D. 120) the Eomans 
had forges in the West of England, both in the Forest of 

* " In the Forest of Dean and thereabouts the ii-on is made at this 
day of cinders, being the rough and offal throAvn by in the Roman 
time; they then having only foot-blasts to melt the iron-stone; but 
now, by the force of a great wheel that drives a pair of bellows twenty 
feet long, all that iron is extracted out of the cinders which could not 
be forced from it by the Roman foot-blast. And in the Forest of Dean 
and thereabouts, and as high as Worcester, there are great and infinite 
quantities of these cinders ; some in vast mounts above ground, some 
under ground, which will supply the iron-works some hundreds of 
years; and these cinders are they which make the prime and best 
iron, and with much less charcoal than doth the iron-stone." — A. 
Yarranton, England's Improvement by Sea and Land. London, 1677. 



IRON AND CIVILIZATION. 35 

Dean and in South Wales ; and that they sent the metal 
from thence to Bristol, where it was forged and made 
into weapons for the use of the troops. - Along the banks 
of the Wye, the ground is in many places a continuous 
bed of iron cinders, in which numerous remains have been 
found, furnishing unmistakable proofs of the Roman fur- 
naces. At the same time, the iron ores of Sussex were 
extensively worked, as appears from the cinder-heaps 
found at Maresfield and several places in that county, in- 
termixed with Roman pottery, coins, and other remains. 
In a bed of scoriae several acres in extent, at Old Land 
Farm in Maresfield, the Rev. Mr. Turner found the re- 
mains of Roman pottery so numerous that scarcely a 
barrow-load of cinders was removed that did not contain 
several fragments, together with coins of the reigns of 
Nero, Vespasian, and Dioclesian.* 

In the turbulent infancy of nations it is to be expected 
that we should hear more of the smith, or worker in iron, 
■ in connection with war, than with more peaceful pursuits. 
Although he was a nail-maker and a horse-shoer, — made 
axes, chisels, saws, and hammers for the artificer, — spades 
and hoes for the farmer, — bolts and fastenings for the 
lord's castle-gates, and chains for his draw-bridge, — it 
was principally because of his skiU in armor-work that 
he was esteemed. He made and mended the weapons 
used in the chase and in war, — the gavelocks, bills, and 
battle-axes ; he tipped the bowmen's aiTows, and fur- 
nished spearheads for the men-at-arms ; but, above aU, 
he forged the mail-coats and cuirasses of the chiefs, and 
welded their swords; on the temper and quality of which 
life, honor, and victory in battle depended. Hence the 

* M. A. Lower, Contributions to Literature, Historical, Antiquarian, 
and Metrical. London, 1854, pp. 88, 89. 



36 INDUSTEIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

great estimation in which the smith was held in the 
Anglo-Saxon times. His person was protected by a 
double penalty. .He was treated as an officer of the 
highest rank, and awarded the first place in precedency. 
After him ranked the maker of mead, and then the phy- 
sician. In the royal court of Wales he sat in the great 
hall with the king and queen, next to the domestic chap- 
lain; ^and even at that early day there seems to have 
been a hot spark in the smith's throat which needed much 
quenching, for he was " entitled to a draught of every 
kind of liquor that was brought into the hall." 

The smith was thus a mighty man. The Saxon Chroni- 
cle describes the valiant knight himself as a " mighty war- 
smith." But the smith was greatest of all in his forging 
of swords ; and the bards were wont to sing the praises 
of the knight's " good sword " and of the smith who made 
it, as well as of the knight himself who wielded it in 
battle. The most extraordinary powers were attributed 
to the weapon of steel when first invented. Its sharpness 
seemed so marvellous when compared with one of bronze, 
that with the vulgar nothing but magic could account for 
it. Traditions, enshrined in fairy tales, still survive in 
most countries, illustrative of its magical properties. The 
weapon of bronze was dull, but that of steel was bright, 
— the " white sword of light," one touch of which broke 
spells, liberated enchanted princesses, and froze giants' 
marrow. King Arthur's magic sword " Excalibur " was 
regarded as almost heroic in the romance of chivalry.* 
So were the swords " Galatin " of Sir Gawain, and 

* This famous sword was afterwards sent by Richard I. as a present 
to Tancred : and the value attached to the weapon may be estimated 
by the fact that the Crusader sent the English monarch, in return for 
it, " four great ships and fifteen galleys." 



lEON AND CIVILIZATION. 37 

" Joyeuse " of Charlemagne, both of which were re- 
puted to he the work of Weland the smith, about whose 
name clusters so much traditional glory as an ancient 
worker in metals.* The heroes of the Northmen in like 
manner wielded magic swords. Olave the Norwegian 
possessed the sword " Macabuin," forged by the dark 
smith of Drontheim, whose feats are recorded in the 
tales of the Scalds. And so, in like manner, traditions 
of the supernatural power of the blacksmith are found 
existing to this day all over the Scottish Highlands.! 

* Weland was the Saxon Vulcan. The name of Weland's or Way- 
land's Smithy is still given to a monument on Lamboum Downs in 
Wiltshire. The place is also known as Wayland Smith's Cave. It 
consists of a rude gallery of stones. 

t Among the Scythians the iron sword was a god. It was the image 
of Mars, and sacrifices were made to it. " An iron sword," says Mr. 
Campbell, " really was once worshipped by a people with whom iron 
was rare. Iron is rare, while stone and bronze weapons are common, 
in British tombs, and the sword of these stories is a personage. It 
shines, it cries out, — the lives of men are bound up in it. And so 
this mystic sword may, perhaps, have been a god amongst the Celts, 
or the god of the people with whom the Celts contended somewhere 
on their long journey to the west. It is a fiction now, but it may be 
founded on fact, and that fact probably was the first use of iron." To 
this day an old horse-shoe is considered a potent spell in some districts 
against the powers of evil; and for want of a horse-shoe a bit of a 
rusty reaping-hook is supposed to have equal power. " Who were 
these powers of evil who could not resist iron, — these fairies who 
shoot stone arrows, and are of the foes to the human race ? Is all this 
but a dim, hazy recollection of war between a people who had iron 
weapons and a race who had not, — the race whose remains are found 
all over Europe? If these were wandering tribes, they had leaders; 
if they were warlike, they had weapons. There is a smith in the 
Pantheon of many nations. Vulcan was a smith; Thor wielded a 
hammer; even Fionn had a hammer, which was heard in Lochlann 
when struck in Eirinn. Fionn may have borrowed his hammer from 
Thor long ago, or both may have got theirs from Vulcan, or all three 
may have brought hammers with them from the land where some 
primeval smith wielded the first sledge-hammer; but may not all 



38 INDUSTEIAL BIOGEAPHY. 

When William the Norman invaded Britain, he was 
well supplied with smiths. His followers were clad in 
armor of steel, and furnished with the best weapons of 
the time. Indeed, their superiority in this respect is 
supposed to have been the principal cause of William's 
victory over Harold ; for the men of both armies were 
equal in point of bravery. The Normans had not only 
smiths to attend to the arms of the knights, but farriers 
to shoe their horses. Henry de Ferrariis, or Ferrers, 
"prefectus fabrorum," was one of the principal officers 
intrusted with the supervision of the Conqueror's ferriery 
department, and long after the earldom was founded his 
descendants continued to bear on their coat of arms th6 
six horse-shoes indicative of their origin.* William also 
gave the town of Northampton, wth the hundred of Fack- 
ley, as a fief to Simon St. Liz, in consideration of his pro- 
viding shoes for his horses.f But though the practice 
of horse-shoeing is said to have been introduced to this 
country at the time of the Conquest, it is probably of an 
earlier date; as, according to Dugdale, an old Saxon 
tenant in capite of Welbeck in Nottinghamshire, named 
Gamelbere, held two carucates of land by the service of 
shoeing the king's palfrey on all four feet with the king's 
nails, as oft as the king should lie at the neighboring 
manor of Mansfield. 

Although we hear of the smith mostly in connection 
with the fabrication of instruments of war in the Middle 

these smith-gods be the smiths who made iron weapons for those who 
fought with the skin-clad warriors who shot flint-arrows, and who are 
now bogles, fairies, and demons ? In any case, tales about smiths seem 
to belong to mythology, and to be common property." — Campbell, 
Popular Tales of the West Highlands, Preface, 74-76. 

* Brook, Discovery of Errors in the Catalogue of the Nobility^ 198. 

t Mbykick, I. 11. 



lEON AND CIVILIZATION. 39 

Ages, his importance was no less recognized in the ordi- 
nary affairs of rural and industrial life. He was, as it 
were, the rivet that held society together. Nothing could 
be done without him. Wherever tools or implements 
were wanted for building, for trade, or for husbandry, his 
skill was called into requisition. In remote places he 
was often the sole mechanic of his district ; and, besides 
being a tool-maker, a farrier, and agricultiyal implement 
maker, he doctored cattle, drew teeth, practised phleboto- 
my, and sometimes officiated as parish clerk and general 
newsmonger ; for the smithy was the very eye and tongue 
of the village. Hence Shakespeare's picture of the smith 
in King John : — 

" I sa-w a smith stand with his hammer, thus, 
The whilst his iron did on the anvil cool, 
With open mouth swallowing a tailor's news." 

The smith's tools were of many sorts ; but the chief 
were his hammer, pincers, chisel, tongs, and anvil. It is 
astonishing what a variety of articles he turned out of 
his smithy by the help of these rude implements. In the 
tooling, chasing, and consummate knowledge of the capa- 
bilities of iron, he greatly surpassed the modem work- 
man ; for the mediasval blacksmith was an artist as well 
as a workman. The numerous exquisite specimens of his 
handicraft which exist ia our old gateways, church doors, 
altar railings, and ornamented dogs and andirons, still serve 
as types for continual reproduction. He was, indeed, the 
most " cunninge workman " of his time. But besides all 
this, he was an engineer. If a road had to be made, or 
a stream embanked, or a trench dug, he was invariably 
called upon to provide the tools, and often to direct the 
work. He was also the military engineer of his day, 
and as late as the reign of Edward HI. we find the king 



40 INDUSTEIAL BIOGRAPHY, 

repeatedly sending for smiths from the Forest of Dean 
to act as engineers for the royal army at the siege of 
Berwick. 

The smith being thus the earliest and most important 
of mechanics, it will readily be understood how, at the 
time when surnames were adopted, his name should have 
been so common in all European countries. 

" From whence came Smith, all be he knight or squire, 
But from the smith that forgeth in the fire? " * 

Hence the multitudinous family of Smiths in England, in 
some cases vainly disguised under the " Smythe " or " De 
Smijthe " ; in Gei-many, the Schmidts ; in Italy, the Fabri, 
Fabricii, or Fabbroni ; in France, the Le Febres or Le- 
fevres ; in Scotland, the Gows, Gowans, or Cowans. "We 
have also among us the Brownsmiths, or makers of brown 
bills ; the Nasmyths, or nailsmiths ; the Arrowsmiths, or 
makers of arrowheads ; the Spearsmiths, or spear-makers ; 
the Shoosmiths, or horse-shoers ; the Goldsmiths, or work- 
ers in gold ; and many more. The Smith proper was, 
however, the worker in iron, — the maker of iron tools, 
implements, and arms, — and hence this name exceeds in 
number that of all the others combined. 

In course of time the smiths of particular districts be- 
gan to distinguish themselves for their excellence in par- 
ticular branches of iron work. From being merely the 
retainer of some lordly or religious establishment, the 
smith worked to supply the general demand, and gradu- 
ally became a manufacturer. Thus the makers of swords, 
tools, bits, and nails, congregated at Birmingham ; and 
the makers of knives and arrowheads at Sheffield. Chau- 
cer speaks of the Miller of Trompington as provided with 
a Sheffield whittle : — 

* Gilbert, Cornwall. 



IRON AND CIVILIZATION. 41 

" A Shefeld thwytel bare he in his hose." * 

The common English arrowheads manufactured at 
Sheffield were long celebrated for their excellent tem- 
per, as Sheffield iron and steel plates are now. The bat- 
tle of Hamildon, fought in Scotland in 1402, was won 
mainly through their excellence. The historian records 
that they penetrated the armor of the Earl of Douglas, 
which had been three years in making ; and they were 
" so sharp and strong that no armor could repel 
them." The same arrowheads were found equally effi- 
cient against French armor on the fields of Crecy and 
Agincourt. 

Although Scotland is now one of the principal sources 
from which our supplies of iron are drawn, it was in 
ancient times greatly distressed for want of the metal. 
The people were as yet too little skilled to be able to 
turn their great mineral wealth to account. Even in the 
time of Wallace, thfey had scarcely emerged from the 
Stone period, and were under the necessity of resisting 
their iron-armed English adversaries by means of rude 
weapons of that material. To supply themselves with 
swords and spearheads, they imported steel from Flan- 
ders, and the rest they obtained by marauding incursions 
into England. The district of Furness in Lancashire — 
then as now an iron-producing district — was frequently 
ravaged with that object ; and on such occasions the 
Scotch seized and carried off all the manufactured iron 
they could find, preferring it, though so heavy, to every 

* Before table-kuives were invented, in the sixteenth century, the 
knife was a very important article; each guest at table bearing his 
own, and sharpening it at the whetstone hung up in the passage, be- 
fore sitting down to dinner. Some even carried a whetstone as well as 
a knife ; and one of Queen Elizabeth's presents to the Earl of Leicester 
was a whetstone tipped with gold. 



42 INDUSTKIAL. BIOGRAPHY. 

other kind of plunder.* About the same period, however, 
iron must have been regarded as ahnost a precious metal 
even in England itself; for we find that in Edward the 
Third's reign, the pots, spits, and frying-pans of the royal 
kitchen were classed among his Majesty's jewels.f 

. The same famine of iron prevailed to a still greater 
extent in the Highlands, where it was even more valued, 
as the clans lived chiefly by hunting, and were in an 
almost constant state of feud. Hence the smith was a 
man of indispensable importance among the Highlanders, 
and the possession of a skilful armorer was greatly valued 
by the chiefs. The story is told of some delinquency 
having been committed by a Highland smith, on whom 
justice must be done ; but as the chief could not dispense 
with the smith, he generously offered to hang two weavers 
in his stead ! 

At length a great armorer arose in the Highlands, who 
was able to forge armor that would resist the best Shef- 
field arrowheads, and to make swords that would vie 
with the best weapons of Toledo and Milan. This was 
the famous Andrea de Ferrara, whose swords still main- 
tain their ancient reputation. This workman is supposed 
to have learnt his art in the Italian city after which he was 

* The early scarcity of iron in Scotland is confirmed by Froissart, 
■who saj-^s: "In Scotland you will never find a man of worth; they are 
like savages, who wish not to be acquainted with any one, are envious 
of the good fortune of others, and suspicious of losing anything them- 
selves ; for their country is very poor. When the English make in- 
roads thither, as they have very frequently done, they order their 
provisions, if they wish to live, to follow close at their backs; for 
nothhig is to be had in that country without great diflflculty. There 
is neither iron to shoe horses, nor leather to make harness, saddles, or 
bridles ; aU these things come ready made from Flanders by sea ; and 
should these fail, there is none to be had in the country." 

t Pakkee's English Home, 77. 



lEON AND CIVILIZATION. 43 

called, and returned to practise it in secrecy among the 
Highland hills. Before him, no man in Great Britain is 
said to have known how to temper a sword in such a way 
as to bend so that the point should touch the hilt and spring 
back uninjured. The swords of Andrea de Ferrara did 
this, and were accordingly in great request ; for it was of 
every importance to the warrior that his weapon should 
he strong and sharp without being unwieldy, and that it 
should not be liable to snap in the act of combat. This 
celebrated smith, whose personal identity* has become 
merged in the Andrea de Ferrara swords of bis manufac- 
ture, pursued his craft in the Highlands, where he em- 
ployed a number of skilled workmen in forging weapons, 
devoting his own time principally to giving them their 
required temper. He is said to have worked in a dark 
cellar, the better to enable him to perceive the effect of 
the heat upon the metal, and to watch the nicety of the 
operation of tempering, as well as possibly to serve as a. 
screen to his secret method of working.f 

Long after Andrea de Ferrara's time, the Scotch 
swords were famous for their temper; Judge Marshal 

* The precise time at which Andrea de Ferrara flourished cannot 
be fixed with accuracy ; but Sir Walter Scott, in one of the notes to 
Waverley, says he is believed to have been a foreign artist brought 
over by James IV. or V. of Scotland to instruct the Scots in the manu- 
facture of sword-blades. The genuine weapons have a crown marked 
on the blades. 

t Mr. Parkes, in his Essay on the Manufacture of Edge-Tools, says: 
" Had this ingenious artist thought of a bath of oil, he might have 
heated this by means of a furnace underneath it, and by the use of a 
thermometer, to the exact point which he found necessary ; though it 
is inconvenient to have to employ a thermometer for every distinct 
operation. Or, if he had been in the possession of a proper bath of 
fusible metal, he would have attained the necessary certainty in hia 
process, and need not have immured himself in a subterranean apart- 
ment." — Pakkes' Essays, 1841, p. 495. 



44 INDUSTEIAL BIOGEAPHY. 

Patten, who accompanied the Protector's expedition into 
Scotland in 1547, observing that " the Scots came with 
swords all broad and thin, of exceeding good temper, and 
universally so made to slice that I never saw none so 
good, so I think it hard to devise a better." The quality 
of the steel used for weapons of war was indeed of no less 
importance for the effectual defence of a country then 
than it is now. The courage of the attacking and de- 
fending forces being equal, the victory would necessarily 
rest with the party in possession of the best weapons. 

England herself has on more than one occasion been 
supposed to be in serious peril because of the decay of 
her iron manufactures. Before the Spanish Armada, the 
production of iron had been greatly discouraged because 
of the destruction of timber in the smelting of the ore, — 
the art of reducing it with pit coal not having yet been 
invented ; and we were consequently mainly dependent 
upon foreign countries for our supplies of the material out 
of which arms were made. The best iron came from 
Spain itself, then the most powerful nation in Europe, 
and as celebrated for the excellence of its weapons as for 
the discipline and valor of its troops. The Spaniards 
prided themselves upon the superiority of their iron, and 
regarded its scarcity in England as an important element 
in their calculations of the conquest of the country by 
their famous Armada. " I have heard," says Harrison, 
" that when one of the greatest peers of Spain espied our 
nakedness in this behalf, and did solemnly utter in no ob- 
scure place, that it would be an easy matter in short time 
to conquer England because it wanted armor, his words 
were not so rashly uttered as politely noted." The vigor 
of Queen Elizabeth promptly supplied a remedy by the 
large importations of iron which she caused to be made, 



II 



lEON AND CIVILIZATION. 45 

principally from Sweden, as well as by the increased ac- 
tivity of the forges in Sussex and the Forest of Dean ; 
" whereby," adds Harrison, " England obtained rest, that 
otherwise might have been sure of sharp and cruel wars. 
Thus a Spanish word uttered by one man at one time, 
overthrew, or at the leastwise hindered sundiy privy 
practices of many at another." * 

Nor has the subject which occupied the earnest atten- 
tion of politicians in Queen Elizabeth's time ceased to 
be of interest ; for, after the lapse of nearly three hundred 
years, we find the smith and the iron manufacturer still 
uppermost in public discussions. It has of late years 
been felt that our much-prized " hearts of oak " are no 
more able to stand against the prows of mail which were 
supposed to threaten them, than the sticks and stones of 
the ancient tribes were able to resist the men armed 
with weapons of bronze or steel. "What Solon said to 
Croisus, when the latter was displaying his great treas- 
ures of gold, still holds true : " If another comes that 
hath better iron than you, he will be master of all that 
gold." So, when an alchemist waited upon the Duke of 
Brunswick during the Seven "Sears' War, and offered 
to communicate the secret of converting iron into gold, 
the Duke replied : " By no means : I want all the iron 
I can find to resist my enemies : as for gold, I get it from 
England." Thus the strength and wealth of nations de- 

* HoLiNSHED, History of England. It was even said to have been 
one of the objects of the Spanish Armada to get the oaks of the Forest 
of Dean destroyed, in order to prevent further smelting of the iron. 
Thus Evelyn, in his Sylva, says : " I have heard that in the great ex- 
pedition of 1588 it was expressly enjoined the Spanish Armada that 
if, when landed, they should not be able to subdue our nation and 
make good their conquest, they should yet be sure not to leave a tree 
standing in the Forest of Dean." — Nichols, History of the Forest of 
Dean, p. 22. 



46 INDUSTRIAL BIOGEAPHY. 

pend upon coal and iron, not forgetting Men, far more 
than upon gold. 

Thanks to our Armstrongs and Whitworths, our 
Browns and our Smiths, the iron defences of England, 
manned by our soldiers and our sailors, furnish the assur- 
ance of continued security for our gold and our wealth, 
and, what is injSnitely more precious, for our industry and 
our liberty. 



CHAPTER II. 

Early English Iron INIanufacxure. 

"He that well observes it, and hath known the welds of Sussex, Surry, and 
Kent, the grand nursery especially of oake and beech, shal find such an altera- 
tion, within lesse than 30 yeefes, as may well strike a feare,lest few yeeres more, 
as pestilent as the former, will leave fewe good trees standing in those welds. 
Such a heate issueth out of the many forges and furnaces for the making of iron, 
and out of the glasse kilnes, as hath devoured many famous woods within the 
welds." — John Noeden, Surveyors'' Dialogue (1607). 

Few records exist of the manufacture of iron in Eng- 
land in early times. After the Romans left the island, 
the British, or more probably the Teutonic tribes settled 
along the south coast, continued the smelting and manu- 
facture of the metal after the methods taught them by the 
colonists. In the midst of the insecurity, however, en- 
gendered by civil war and social changes, the pursuits of 
industry must necessarily have been considerably inter- 
fered with, and the art of iron-forging became neglected. 
No notice of iron being made in Sussex occurs in Domes- 
day Book, from which it would appear that the manufac- 
ture had in a great measure ceased in that county at the 
time of the Conquest, though it was continued in the 
iron-producing districts bordering on Wales. In many 
of the Anglo-Saxon graves which have been opened long 
iron swords have been found, showing that weapons of 
that metal were in common use. But it is probable that 
iron was still scarce, as ploughs and other agricultural 
implements continued to be made of wood, — one of the 



48 INDUSTRIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

Anglo-Saxon laws enacting that no man should undertake 
to guide a plough who could not make one ; and that the 
cords with which it was bound should be of twisted wil- 
lows. ■ The metal was held in esteem principally as the 
material of war. All male adults were required to be 
provided with weapons, and honor was awarded to such 
artificers as excelled in the fabrication of swords, arms, 
and defensive armor.* 

Camden incidentally states that the manufacture of iron 
was continued in the western counties during the Saxon 
era, more particularly in the Forest of Dean, and that in 
the time of Edward the Confessor the tribute paid by the 
city of Srloucester consisted almost entirely of iron rods, 
wrought to a size fit for making nails for the king's ships. 
An old religious writer speaks of the iron- workers of that 
day as heathenish in their manners, puJ0Fed up with pi'ide, 
and inflated with worldly prosperity. On the occasion of 
St. Egwin's visit to the smiths of Alcester, as we are told 
in the legend, he found them given up to every kind of 
luxury ; and when he proceeded to preach unto them, 
they beat upon their anvils in contempt of his doctrine so 
as completely to deafen him ; upon which he addressed 
his prayers to heaven, and the town was immediately de- 
stroyed.! But the first reception given to John Wesley 
by the miners of the Forest of Dean, more than a thou- 
sand years later, was perhaps scarcely more gratifying 
than that given to St. Egwin. 

* WiLKiNS, Leges Sax. 25. 

t Life of St. Egwin, in Capgrave's Nova Legenda Anglice. Alcester 
■was, as its name indicates, an old Roman settlement (situated on the 
Icknild Street), where the art of working in iron was practised from 
an early period. It was originally called Alauna, being situated on 
the river Alne in Warwickshire, It is still a seat of the needle manu- 
facture. 



EARLY ENGLISH IRON MANUFACTURE. 49 

• That working in iron vas regarded as an honorable 
and useful . calling in the Middle Ages is apparent from, 
the extent to which it was followed by the monks, some of 
whom were excellent craftsmen. Thus St. Dunstan, who 
governed Englaiid in the time of Edwy the Fair, was a 
skilled blacksmith and metallurgist. He is said to have 
had a forge even in his bedroom, and it was there that his 
reputed encounter with Satan occurred, in which of course 
the saint came off the victor. 

There was another monk of St. Alban's, called Anketil, 
who flourished in the twelfth century, so famous for his 
skiU as a worker in iron, silver, gold, jewelry, and gilding, 
that he was invited by the king of Denmark to be his 
goldsmith and banker. A pair of gold and silver candle- 
sticks of his manufacture, presented by the abbot of St. 
Alban's to Pope Adrian IV., were so much esteemed for 
their exquisite workmanship that they were consecrated 
to St. Peter, and were the means of obtaining high eccle- 
siastical distinction for the abbey. 

We also find that the abbots of monasteries situated in 
the iron districts, among their other labors, devoted them- 
selves to the manufacture of iron from the ore. The 
extensive beds of cinders still found in the immediate 
neighborhood of Rievaulx and Hackness, in Yorkshire, 
show that the monks were well acquainted with the art 
of forging, and early turned to account the riches of the 
Cleveland iron-stone. In the Forest of Dean also the 
Abbot of Flaxley was possessed of one stationary and one 
itinerant forge, by grant from Henry II., and he was al- 
lowed two oaks weekly for fuel, — a privilege afterwards 
commuted, in 1258, for Abbot's Wood of eight hundred 
and seventy-two acres, which was held by the abbey until 
its dissolution in the reign of Henry VIII. At the same 



50 INDUSTRIAL BIOGEAPHY. 

time the Earl of Warwick had forges at work in his woods 
at Lydney ; and in 1282, as many as seventy-two forges 
were leased from the Crown by various iron-smelters in 
the same Forest of Dean. 

There are numerous indications of iron-smelting having 
been conducted on a considerable scale at some remote 
period in the neighborhood of -Leeds, in Yorkshire. In 
digging out the foundations of houses in Briggate, the 
principal street of that town, many " bell pits " have been 
brought to light, from which iron-stone has been removed. 
The new cemetery at Burmandtofts, in the same town, 
was in like manner found pitted over with these ancient 
holes. The miner seems to have dug a well about six 
feet in diameter, and so soon as he reached the mineral, 
he worked it away all round, leaving the bell-shaped 
cavities in question. He did not attempt any gallery ex- 
cavations, but when the pit was exhausted, a fresh one 
was sunk. The ore, wdien dug, was transported, most 
probably on horses' backs, to the adjacent districts for the 
convenience of fuel. For it was easier to carry the min- 
eral to the wood — then exclusively used for smelting — 
than to bring the wood to the mineral. Hence the nu- 
merous heaps of scorias found in the neighborhood of 
Leeds, — at jMiddleton, Whitkirk, and Horsforth, — all 
within the borough. At Horsforth, they are found in 
conglomerated masses from thirty to forty yards long, and 
of considerable width and depth. The remains of these 
cinder-beds in various positions, some of them near the 
summit of the hill, tend to show, that as the trees were 
consumed, a new wind furnace was erected in another 
situation, in order to lessen the labor of carrying the fuel. 
There are also deposits of a similar kind at Kirkby Overr 
blow, a village a few miles to the nprtheast of Leeds ; 



EARLY ENGLISH IRON MANUFACTURE. 51 

and Tlioresby states that the place was so called because 
it was the village of the " Ore blowers," — hence the cor- 
ruption of " Overblow." A discovery has recently been 
made among the papers of the Wentworth family, of a 
contract for supplying wood and ore for iron " blomes " at 
Kirskill near Otley, in the fourteenth century ; * though 
the manufacture near that place has long since ceased. 

Although the making of iron was thus carried on in 
various parts - of England in the Middle Ages, the quan- 
tity produced was altogether insufficient to meet the ordi- 
nary demand, as it appears from our early records to 
have long continued one of the principal articles imported 

* The following is an extract of this curious document, which is 
dated the 26th Dec. 1352: — 

" Ceste endenture fait entre monsire Richard de Goldeshurghe, 
chivaler, dune part, et Robert Totte, seigneur, dautre part, tesmoigne 
qe le dit monsire Richard ad graunte et lesse al dit Robert deuz Oly- 
veres contenaunz vynt quatre blomes de la feste seynt Piere ad vincula 
Ian du regne le Roi Edward tierce apres le conqueste vynt sysme, en 
sun parke de Creskelde, rendant al dit monsire Richard chesqune 
semayn quatorzse soutz dargent duraunt les deux Olyvers avaunt" 
dist; a tenir et avoir al avaunt dit Robert del avaunt dit monsire 
Richard de la feste seynt Piere avaunt dist, taunque le bois soit ars 
du dit parke a la volunte le dit monsire Richard saunz inteiTupcione 
[e le dicte monsieur Richard trovera a dit Robert urre suffisaunt pur 
lez ditz Olyvers pur le son donaunt: these wwds are inlerlined]. Et 
fait a savoir qe le dit Robert ne nule de soens coupard ne abatera nule 
manere darbre ne de boys pur les deuz olyvers avaunt ditz mes par la 
veu et la lyvere le dit monsire Richard, ou par ascun autre par le dit 
monsire Richard assigne. En tesmoigaunz (sic) de quenx choses a 
cestes presentes endentures les parties enterchaungablement ount mys 
lour seals. Escript a Creskelde le meskerdy en le semayn de Pasque 
Ian avaunt diste." 

It is probable that the " blomes " referred to in this agreement were 
the bloomeries or fires in which the iron was made; and that the 
" olyveres " were forges or erections, each of which contained so many 
bloomeries, but were of limited durability, and probably perished in 
the using. 



52 INDUSTRIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

from foreign countries. English iron was not only dearer, 
but it was much inferior in quality to that manufactured 
abroad ; and hence all the best arms and tools continued 
to be made of foreign iron. Indeed, the scarcity of this 
metal occasionally led to great inconvenience, and to pre- 
vent its rising in price Parliament enacted, in 1354, that 
no iron, either wrought or un wrought, should be exported, 
under heavy penalties. For nearly two hundred years — 
that is, throughout the fourteenth and fifteoiith centuries 
— the English market was principally supplied with iron 
and steel from Spain and Germany ; the foreign mer- 
chants of the Steel-yard doing a large and profitable trade 
in those commodities. While the woollen and other 
branches of trade were making considerable progress, the 
manufacture of iron stood still. Among the lists of arti- 
cles, the importation of which was prohibited in Edward 
IV.'s reign, with a view to the protection of domestic 
manufactures, we find no mention of iron, which was still, 
as a matter of necessity, allowed to come freely from 
abroad. 

The first indications of revival in the iron manufacture 
showed themselves in Sussex, a district in which the 
Romans had established extensive works, and where 
smelting operations were carried on to a partial extent in 
the neighborhood of Lewes, in the thirteenth and four- 
teenth centuries, where the iron was principally made into 
nails and horseshoes. The county abounds in iron-stone, 
which is contained in the sandstone beds of the Forest 
ridge, lying between the chalk and oolite of the district, 
called by geologists the Hastings sand. The beds run in 
a northwesterly direction, by Ashburnham and Heath- 
field, to Crowborough and thereabouts. In early times 
the region was covered with wood, and was known as the 



EARLY ENGLISH IRON MANUFACTURE. 53 

Great Forest of Anderida. The Weald, or wild wood, 
abounded in oaks of great size, suitable for smelting ore ; 
and the proximity of the mineral to the timber, as well 
as the situation of the district in the neighborhood of the 
capital, sufficiently account for the Sussex iron-works 
being among the most important which existed in Eng- 
land previous to the discovery of smelting by pit-coal. 

The iron manufacturers of the south were especially 
busy during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Then* 
works were established near to the beds of ore, and in 
places where water-power existed, or could be provided 
by artificial means. Hence the numerous artificial ponds 
which are still to be found all over the Sussex iron dis- 
trict. Dams of earth, called " pond-bays," were thrown 
across watercourses, with convenient outlets built of 
masonry, wherein was set the great wheel which worked 
the hammer or blew the furnace. Portions of the ad- 
joining forest-land were granted or leased to the iron- 
smelters ; and the many places stiU known by the name 
of " Chart " in the Weald, probably mark the lands char- 
tered for the purpose of supplying the iron-works with 
their necessary fuel. The cast-iron tombstones and slabs 
in many Sussex churchyards, — the andirons and chim- 
ney backs * still found in old Sussex mansions and farm- 
housesj and such names as Furnace Place, Cinder Hill, 
Forge Farm, and Hammer Pond, which are of very 
frequent occurrence throughout the county, clearly mark 

* The back of a grate has recently been found, cast by Richard 
Leonard at Brede Furnace in 1636. It is curious as containing a rep- 
resentation of the founder with his dog and cups ; a drawing of the 
furnace, with the wheelbarrow and other implements for the casting, 
and on a shield the pincers and others marks of the blacksmith. Leon- 
ard was tenant of the Sackville fmrnace at Little Udimore. — Sussex 
Archceological Collections, Vol. XII. 



54 INDUSTRIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

the extent and activity of this ancient branch of industry.* 
Steel was also manufactured at several places in the 
county, more particularly at Steel-Forge Land, Warble- 
ton, and at Eobertsbridge. The steel was said to be of 
good quality, resembling Swedish, — both alike depending 
for their excellence on the exclusive use of charcoal in 
smelting the ore, — iron so produced maintaining its supe- 
riority over coal-smelted iron to this day. 

When cannon came to be employed in war, the near- 
ness of Sussex to London and the Cinque Ports gave it a 
great advantage over the remoter iron-producing districts 
in the north and west of England, and for a long time the 
iron-works of this county enjoyed almost a monopoly of 
the manufacture. The metal was still too precious to be 
used for cannon-balls, which were hewn of stone from 
quarries on Maidstone Heath. Iron was only available, 
and that in limited quantities, for the fabrication of the 
cannon themselves, and wrought-iron was chiefly used for 
the purpose. An old mortar which formerly lay on 
Eridge Green, near Frant, is said to have been the first 
mortar made in England ; f only the chamber was cast, 
while the tube consisted of bars strongly hooped together. 
Although the local distich says that 

" Master Hiiggett and his man John 
They did cast the first cannon," 

there is every reason to believe that both cannons and 
mortars were made in Sussex before Huggett's time ; the 
old hooped guns in the Tower being of the date of Henry 
VI. The first cast-iron cannons of English manufacture 

* For an interesting account of the early iron industry of Sussex see 
M. A. Lo wee's Contributions to Literature, Historical, Antiquarian, and 
Metrical. London, 185d. 

t ArchoBohgia, "Vol. X. 472. 



EARLY ENGLISH IRON MANUFACTURE. 55 

were made at Buxtead, in Sussex, in 1543, by Ealph 
Hogge, master founder, who employed as his principal 
assistant one Peter Baude, a Frenchman. Gun-founding 
was a French iuvention, and Mr. Lower supposes that 
Hogge brought over Baude from France to teach his 
workmen the method of casting the guns. About the 
Bame time Hogge employed a skilled Flemish gunsmith 
named Peter Van CoUet, who, according to Stowe, " de- 
vised or caused to be made certain mortar pieces, being 
at the mouth from eleven to nine inches wide, for the use 
whereof the said Peter caused to be made certaia hoUow 
shot of cast-iron to be stuffed with fyrework, whereof the 
bigger sort for the same has screws of iron to receive a 
match to carry fyre for to break in small pieces the said 
hoUow shot, whereof the smallest piece hitting a man 
would kill or spoil him." In short, Peter Van Collet 
here introduced the manufacture of the explosive shell in 
the form in which it continued to be used down to our 
own day. 

Baude, the Frenchman, afterwards set up business on 
his own account, making many guns, t)oth of brass and 
iron, some of which are still preserved ia the Tower.* 
Other workmen learning the trade from him also began 
to manufacture on their own account; one of Baude's 
servants, named John Johnson, and after him his son 
Thomas, becoming famous for the excellence of their 
cast-iron guns. The Hogges continued the business for 
several generations, and became a wealthy county family. 
Huggett was another cannon-maker of repute ; and Owen 
became celebrated for his brass culverins. Mr. Lower 
mentions, as a curious instance of the tenacity with which 

* One of these, 6^ feet long, and of 2^ inches bore, manufactured ia 
1543, bears the cast inscription of Fetrus £aude GaUm operis artifex. 



56 . INDUSTRIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

families continue to follow a particular vocation, that many 
persons of the name of Huggett stiU carry on the trade 
of blacksmith in East Sussex. But most of the early 
workmen at the Sussex iron-works, as in other branches 
of skilled industry in England during the sixteenth cen- 
tury, were foreigners, — Flemish and French, — many 
of whom had taken refuge in this country from the rehg- 
ious persecutions then raging abroad, while others, of 
special skill, were invited over by the iron manufac- 
turers to instruct their workmen in the art of metal- 
founding.* 

As much wealth was gained by the pursuit of the re- 
vived iron manufacture in Sussex, iron-mills rapidly ex- 
tended over the ore-yielding district. The landed pro- 
prietors entered with zeal into this new branch of industry, 
and when wood ran short, they did not hesitate to sacrifice 
their ancestral oaks to provide fuel for the furnaces. Mr. 
Lower says even the most ancient families, such as the 
Nevilles, Howards, Percys, Stanleys, Montagues, Pel- 
hams, Ashburnhams, Sidneys, Sackvilles, Dacres, and 
Finches, prosecuted the manufacture with all the appar- 
ent ardor of Birmingham and Wolverhampton men in 
modern times. "WiUiam Penn, the courtier Quaker, had 
iron-furnaces at Hawkhurst and other places in Sussex. 
The ruins of the Ashbumham forge, situated a few miles 
to the northeast of Battle, still serve to indicate the ex- 
tent of the manufacture. At the upper part of the valley 
in which the works were situated an artificial lake was 
formed by constructing an embankment across the water- 

* Mr. Lower says : " Many foreigners were brought over to carry 
on the works ; which perhaps may account for the number of French- 
men and Germans whose names appear in our parish registers about 
the middle of the sixteenth century." — Oontribuiims to Literature, 108. 






EAELY ENGLISH IRON MANUFACTURE. 57 

course descending from the higher ground,* and thiis a 
sufficient fall of water was procured for the purpose of 
blowing the furnaces, the site of which is still marked by 
surrounding mounds of iron-cinders and charcoal waste. 
Three quarters of a mile lower down the valley stood the 
forge, also provided with water-power for working the 
hammer ; and some of the old buildings are still standing, 
among others the boring-house, of small size, now used 
as an ordinary laborer's cottage, where the guns were 
bored. The machine was a mere upright drill worked by 
the water-wheel, which was only eighteen inches across 
the breast. The property belonged, as it still does, to the 
Ashbumham family, who are said to have derived great 
wealth from the manufacture of guns at their works, 
which were among the last carried on in Sussex. The 
Ashburnham iron was distinguished for its toughness, and 
was said to be equal to the best Spanish or Swedish iron. 
Many new men also became enriched, and founded 
county families ; the Fiiller family franldy avowing their 
origin in the singular motto of Garbone et forcipibus, — 
literally, by charcoal and tongs.f Men then went into 

* The embankment and sluices of the furnace-pond at the tipper 
part of the valley continue to be maintained, the lake being used by 
the present Lord Ashburnham as a preserve for fish and waterfowl. 

t Reminding one of the odd motto assumed by Gillespie, the tobac- 
conist of Edinburgh, founder of Gillespie's Hospital, on whose carriage- 
panels was emblazoned a Scotch mull, with the motto, — 

" Wha wad ha' thocht it, 
That noses oould ha' bought it ! " 

It is just possible that the Fullers may have taken their motto from 
the words employed by Juvenal in describing the father of Demos- 
thenes, who was a blacksmith and a sword-cutler: — 
" Quern pater ardentis mass» fuligine lippus, 
A carbone et forcipibus gladiosque parante 
lacude et luteo Vulcano ad rhetora misit," 



58 INDUSTRIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

Sussex to push their fortunes at the forges, as they now 
do in Wales or Staffordshire; and they succeeded then, 
as they do now, by dint of application, industry, and en- 
ergy. The Sussex ArchjEological Papers for 1860 con- 
tain a curious record of such an adventurer in the history 
of the founder of the Gale family. Leonard Gale was 
born in 1620 at Riverhead, near Sevenoaks, where his 
father pursued the trade of a. blacksmith. When the 
youth had reached his seventeenth year, his father and 
mother, with five of their sons and daughters, died of the 
plague, Leonard and his brother being the only members 
of the family that survived. The patrimony of 200^. left 
them was soon spent ; after which Leonard paid off his 
servants, and took to work diligently at his father's trade. 
Saving a little mmiey, he determined to go down into 
Sussex, where we shortly find him working the St. Leon- 
ard's Forge, and afterwards the Tensley Forge near 
Crawley, and the Cowden Iron-works, which then bore a 
high reputation. After forty years' labor, he accumulated 
a good fortune, which he left to his son of the same name, 
who went on iron-forging, and eventually became a coun- 
ty gentleman, owner of the house and estate of Crabbett 
near Worth, and Member of Parliament for East Grin- 
stead. 

Several of the new families, however, after occupying a 
high position in the county, again subsided into the labor- 
ing class, illustrating the Lancashire proverb of " Twice 
clogs, once boots," the sons squandering what the fathers 
had gathered, and falling back into the ranks again. 
Thus the great Fowles family of Riverhall disappeared 
altogether from Sussex. One of them buUt the fine man- 
sion of Riverhall, noble even in decay. Another had a 
grant of free warren from King James over his estates 



EAELY ENGLISH IRON MANUFACTURE. 59 

in Wadhurst, Frant, Kotherfield, and Mayfield. Mr. 
Lower says the fourth in descent from this person kept 
the turnpike-gate at Wadhurst, and that the last of the 
family, a day-laborer, emigrated to America in 1839, 
carrying with him, as the sole relic of his family great- 
ness, the royal grant of free warren given to his ancestor. 
The Barhams and Mansers were also great iron-men, offi- 
ciatiag as high sheriffs of the county at different times, 
and occupying spacious mansions. One branch of these 
families terminated, Mr. Lower says, with Nicholas Bar- 
ham, who died in the workhouse at Wadhurst ia 1788 ; 
and another continues to be represented by a wheelwright 
at Wadhurst of the same name. 

The iron manufacture of Sussex reached its height to- 
wards the close of the reign of Elizabeth, when the trade 
became so prosperous that, instead of importing iron, 
England began to export it in considerable quantities, in 
the shape of iron ordnance. Sir Thomas Leighton and 
Sir Henry Neville had obtaiaed patents from the queen, 
which enabled them to send their ordnance abroad, the 
consequence of which was that the Spaniards were found 
arming their ships and fighting us with guns of our own 
manufacture. Sir Walter Ealeigh, calling attention to 
the subject in the House of Commons, said, " I am sure 
heretofore one ship of Her Majesty's was able to beat ten 
Spaniards, but now, by reason of our own ordnance, we 
are hardly matcht one to one." Proclamations were 
issued forbidding the export of iron and brass ordnance, 
and a bill was brought into Parliament to put a stop to 
the trade ; but, notwithstanding these prohibitions, the 
Sussex guns long continued to be smuggled out of the 
country in considerable numbers. " It is almost incredi- 
ble," says Camden, " how many guns are made of the 



60 INDUSTEIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

iron in this county. Count Gondomar (the Spanisli am- 
bassador) well knew their goodness when he so often 
begged of King James the boon to export them." 
Though the king refused his. sanction, it appears that Sir 
Anthony Shirley of Weston, an extensive iron-master, 
succeeded in forwarding to the King of Spain a hundred 
pieces of cannon. 

So active were the Sussex manufecturers, and so brisk 
was the trade they carried on, that during the reign of 
James I. it is supposed one half of the whole quantity of 
iron produced in England was made there. Simon Stur- 
tevant, in his " Treatise of Metallica," published in 1612, 
estimates the whole number of iron-mills in England and 
"Wales at eight hundred, of which, he says, " there are 
foure hundred milnes in Surry, Kent, and Sussex, as the 
townsmen of Haslemere have testified and numbered 
unto me." But the townsmen of Haslemere must cer- 
tainly have been exaggerating, unless they counted 
smiths' and farriers' shops in the number of iron-mills. 
About the same time that Sturtevant's treatise was pub- 
lished, there appeared a treatise entitled the " Surveyors' 
Dialogue," by one John Norden, the object of which was 
to make out a case against the iron-works, and their being 
allowed to burn up the timber of the country for fuel. 
Yet Norden does not make the number of iron-works 
much more than a third of Sturtevant's estimate. He 
says, " I have heard that there are or lately were in 
Sussex neere 140 hammers and furnaces for iron, and in 
it and Surrey adjoining three or four glasse-houses." 
Even the smaller number stated by Norden, however, 
shows that Sussex was then regarded as the principal 
seat of the iron-trade. Camden vividly describes the 
noise and bustle of the manufacture, — the working of the 



EARLY ENGLISH IRON MANUFACTURE. 61 

heavy hammers, which, " beating upon the iron, fill the 
neighborhood round about, day and night, with continual 
noise." These hammers were, for the most part, worked 
by the power of water, carefully stored in the artificial 
" Hammer-ponds " above described. The hammer-shaft 
was usually of ash, about nine feet long, clamped at inter- 
vals with iron hoops. It was worked by the revolutions 
of the water-wheel, furnished with projecting arms or 
knobs to raise the hammer, which fell as each knob 
passed, the rapidity of its action of course depending on 
the velocity with which the water-wheel revolved. The 
forge-blast was also worked for the most part by watef- 
power. Where the furnaces were small, the blast was 
produced by leather bellows worked by hand, or by a 
horse walking in a gia. The foot-blasts of the earlier 
iron-smelters were so imperfect, that but a small propor- 
tion of the ore was reduced, so that the iron-makers of 
Isiter times, more particularly in the Forest- of Dean, 
instead of digging for iron-stone, resorted to the beds of 
ancient scorise for their principal supply of the mineral. 
Notwithstanding the large number of furnaces in blast 
throughout the county of Sussex at the period we refer to, 
their produce was comparatively small, and must not be 
measured by the enormous produce of modern iron-works ; 
for while an iron-furnace of the present day will easily 
turn out one hundred and fifty tons of pig per week, the 
best of the older furnaces did not produce more than from 
three to four tons. One of the last extensive contracts 
executed in Sussex was the casting of the iron rails 
which enclose St. Paul's Cathedral. The contract was 
thought too large for one iron-master to undertake, and it 
was consequently distributed amongst several contractors, 
though the principal part of the work was executed at 



62 INDUSTEIAL BIOGEAPHY. 

Lamberhurst, near Tunbridge Wells. But to produce 
the comparatively small quantity of iron turned out by 
tbe old works, the consumption of timber was enormous ; 
for the making of every ton of pig-iron required four 
loads of timber converted into charcoal fuel, and the 
making of every ton of bar-iron required three additional 
loads. Thus, notwithstanding the indispensable need of 
iron, the extension of the manufacture, by threatening the 
destruction of the timber of the southern counties, came 
to be regarded in the light of a national calamity. Up to 
a certain point, the clearing of the Weald of its dense 
growth of underwood had been of advantage, by affording 
better opportunities for the operations of agriculture. 
But the " voragious iron-mills " were proceeding to swal- 
low up everything that would burn, and the old forest 
growths were rapidly disappearing. An entire wood was 
soon exhausted, and long time was needed before it grew 
again. At Lamberhurst alone, though the produce was 
only about five tons of iron a week, the annual consump- 
tion of wood was about two .hundred thousand cords ! , 
Wood continued to be the only material used for fuel 
generally, — a strong prejudice existing against the use 
of sea-coal for domestic purposes.* It therefore began to 
be feared that there would be no available fuel left within 
practicable reach of the metropolis ; and the contingency 
of having to face the rigorous cold of an English winter 
without fuel naturally occasioning much alarm, the action 

* It was then believed that sea or pit-coal was poisonous when burnt 
in dwellings, and that it was especially injurious to the human com- 
plexion. All sorts of diseases were attributed to its use, and at one 
time it was even penal to burn it. The Londoners only began to 
reconcile themselves to the use of coal when the wood within reach 
of the metropolis had been nearly all burnt up, and no other fuel was 
to be had. 



EARLY ENGLISH IRON MANUFACTURE. 63 

of the government was deemed necessary to remedy the 
apprehended evil. 

To check the destruction of wood near London, an Act 
was passed in 1581 prohibiting its conversion into fuel 
for the making of iron within fourteen miles of the 
Thames, forbidding the erection of new iron- works within 
twenty-two miles of London, and restricting the num- 
ber of works in Kent, Surrey, and Sussex beyond the 
above- limits. Similar enactments were made in future 
Parliaments with the same object, which had the effect 
of checking the trade, and several of the Sussex iron- 
masters were under the necessity of removing theii- works 
elsewhere. Some of them migrated to Glamorganshire, 
in South Wales, because of the abundance of timber as 
weU as iron-stone in that quarter, and there set up their 
forges, more particularly at Aberdare and Merthyr Tyd- 
vil. Mr. Llewellin has recently published an interesting 
account of their proceedings, with descriptions of their 
works,* remains of which still exist at Llwydcoed, Pon- 
tyryns, and other places in the Aberdare valley. Among 
the Sussex masters who settled in Glamorganshire for 
the purpose of carrjdng on the iron manufacture were 
Walter Biu:rell, the friend of John Ray, the naturalist, 
one of the Morleys of Glynde in Sussex, the Eelfes from 
Mayfield, and the Cheneys from Crawley. 

Notwithstanding these migrations of enterprisiag man- 
ufacturers, the iron trade of Sussex continued to exist 
until the middle of the seventeenth century, when the 
waste of timber was again urged upon the attention of 
Parliament, and the penalties for infringing the statutes 
seem to have been more rigorously enforced. The trade 

* Archmologia Cambrensis, 3d Series, No. 34, April, 1863, Art. 
"Sussex L-onmasters in Glamorganshire." 



64 INDUSTEIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

then suffered a more serious check ; and during the civil 
wars, a heavy blow was given to it by the destruction of 
the works belonging to all royalists,, which was accom- 
plished by a division of the army under Sir William 
Waller. Most of the Welsh iron-works were razed to 
the ground about the same time, and were not again re- 
built. And after the Restoration, in 1674, all the royal 
iron-works in the Forest of Dean were demolished, leaving 
only such to be supplied with ore as were beyond the 
forest limits; the reason alleged for this measure being 
lest the iron manufacture should endanger the supply of 
timber required for shipbuilding and other necessary pur- 
poses. 

From this time the iron manufacture of Sussex, as of 
England generally, rapidly declined. In 1740 there were 
only fifty-nine furnaces in all England, of which ten were 
in Sussex; and in 1788 there were only two. A few 
years later, and the Sussex iron-furnaces were blov^Ti out 
altogether. Farnhurst in western, and Ashburnham in 
eastern, Sussex, witnessed the total extinction of the man- 
ufacture. The din of the iron-hammer was hushed, the 
glare of the furnace faded, the last blast of the bellows 
was blown, and the district returned to its original rural 
solitude. Some of the furnace-ponds were drained and 
planted with hops or willows ; others formed beautiful 
lakes in retired pleasure-grounds ; while the remainder 
were used to drive flour-mills, as the streams in North 
Kent, instead of driving fulling-mills, were employed to 
work paper-mills. All that now remains of the old iron- 
works are the extensive beds of cinders, from which ma- 
terial is occasionally taken to mend the Sussex roads, and 
the numerous furnace-ponds, hammer-posts, forges, and 
cinder-places, which mark the seats of the ancient manu- 
facture. 



GHAPTER III. 

Iron-smelting bt Pit-Coal. — Dud Dudley. 

" God Of his Infinite goodness (if we will but take notice of his goodness unto 
this Nation) hath made this Country a very Granary for the supplying of Smitha 
with Iron, Cole, and Lime made with cole, which hath much supplied these men 
with Corn also of late ; and from these men a great part, not only of this Island, 
but also of his Majestie's other Kingdo'ms and Territories, with Iron wares have 
their supply, and Wood in these parts almost exhaust-ed, although it were of late 
a mighty woodland country." — Dudlkt's Metallum Mortis, 1665. 

The severe restrictions enforced by the legislature 
against the use of wood in iron-smelting had the effect of 
almost extinguishing the manufacture. New furnaces 
ceased to be erected, and many of the old ones were al- 
lowed to fall into decay, untU it began to be feared that 
this important branch of industry would become com- 
pletely lost. The same restrictions alike affected the 
operations of the glass manufacture, which, with the aid 
of foreign artisans, had been gradually established in 
England, and was becoming a thriving branch of trade. 
It was even proposed that the smelting of iron should be 
absolutely prohibited. " Many thiak," said a contemporary 
writer, " that there should be no works anywhere, — they 
do so devour the woods." 

The use of iron, however, could not be dispensed with. 
The very foundations of society rested upon an abundant 
supply of it, for tools and implements of peace, as weU as 
for weapons of war. In the dearth of the article at home, 
a supply of it was therefore sought for abroad ; and both 



66 INDUSTETAL BIOGEAPHY. 

iron and steel came to be imported in. largely-increased 
quantities. This branch of trade was principally in the 
hands of the Steelyard Company of Foreign Merchants, 
established in Upper Thames Street, a little above Lon- 
don Bridge ; and they imported large quantities of iron 
and steel from foreign countries, principally from Sweden, 
Germany, and Spain. The best iron came from Spain, 
though the Spaniards on their part coveted our English- 
made cannons, which were better manufactured than 
theirs ; while the best steel came from Germany and 
Sweden.* 

Under these circumstances, it was natural that persons 
interested in the English ii'on manufacture should turn 
their attention to some other description of fuel which 
should serve as a substitute for the prohibited article. 
There was known to be an abundance of coal in the 
northern and midland counties, and it occurred to some 
speculators, more than usually daring, to propose it as a 
substitute for the charcoal fuel made from wood. But 
the same popular prejudice which existed against the use 
of coal for domestic purposes prevented its being em- 
ployed for purposes of manufacture ; and they were 
thought very foolish persons indeed who first promul- 
gated the idea of smelting iron by means of pit-coal. 
The old manufacturers held it to be impossible to reduce 
the ore in any other way than by means of charcoal of 
wood. It was only when the wood in the neighborhood 
of the iron-works had been almost entirely bm'nt up, that 

* As late as 1790, long after the monopoly of the foreign merchants 
had been abolished, Pennant says: " The present Steelyard is the 
great repository of imported iron, which furnishes our metropolis with 
that necessary material. The quantity of bars that fills the yard and 
warehouses of this quarter strikes with astonishment the most indiffer- 
ent beholder." — Penjiant, Account of London, 309. 



lEON-SMELTING BY PIT-COAL. 67 

the manufacturers were driven to entertain tlie idea of 
using coal as a substitute ; but more than a hundred years 
passed before the practice of smeltiag iron by its means 
became general. 

The first who took out a patent for the purpose was 
one Simon Sturtevant, a German skUled in mining oper- 
ations ; the professed object of his invention being " to 
neale, melt, and worke aU kind of metal oares, irons, and 
steeles with^sea-coale, pit-coale, earth-coale, and brush 
feweU." The principal end of his invention, he states in 
his Treatise of MetaUica,* is to save the consumption and 
waste of the woods and timber of the country ; and, should 
his design succeed, he holds that it " will prove to be the 
best and most profitable business and invention that ever 
was known or invented in England these many yeares." 
He says he has already made trial of the process on a 
small scale, and is confident that it will prove equally 
successful on a large one. Sturtevant was not very spe- 
cific as to his process ; but it incidentally appears to have 
been his purpose to reduce the coal by an imperfect com- 
bustion to the condition of coke, thereby ridding it of 
" those malignant proprieties which are averse fo the na-: 
ture of metallique substances." The subject was treated 
by him, as was customary in those days, as a great mys- 
tery, made still more mysterious by the multitude of 
learned words under which he undertook to describe his 
" Ignick Invention." All the operations of industry were 
then treated as secrets. Each trade was a craft, and 
those who followed it were called craftsmen. Even the 
common carpenter was a handicraftsman; and skUled 

* Sturtevant' s Metallica ; briefly comprehending the Doctrine of 
Diverse New Metallical Inventions, SfC, Keprinted and published at 
the Great Seal Patent Office, 1858. 



68 INDUSTRIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

artisans were " cunning men." But the higher branches 
of work were mysteries, the communication of which to 
others was carefully guarded by the regulations of the 
trades' guilds. Although the early patents are called 
specifications, they in reality specify nothing. They are 
for the most part but a mere haze of words, from which 
very little definite information can be gleaned as to the 
processes patented. It may be that Sturtevant had not 
yet reduced his idea to any definite method,^nd therefore 
could not definitely explain it. However that may be, it 
is certain that his process failed when tried on a large 
scale, and Sturtevant's patent was accordingly cancelled 
at the end of a year. 

The idea, however, had been fairly born, and repeated 
patents were taken out with the same object from time to 
time. Thus, immediately on Sturtevant's failure becom- 
ing known, one John Rovenzon, who had been mixed up 
with the other's adventure, applied for a patent for making 
iron by the same process, which was granted him in 1613. 
His Treatise of Metallica * shows that Rovenzon had a 
true conception of the method of manufacture. Never- 
theless he, too, failed in carrying out the invention in 
practice, and his patent was also cancelled. Though 
these failures were very discouraging, like experiments 
continued to be made and patents taken out, —princi- 
pally by Dutchmen and Germans,! — but no decided 
success seems to have attended their efforts until the 
year 1620, when Lord Dudley took out his patent "for 
melting iron ore, maldng bar-iron, &c., with coal, in fur- 

* Reprinted and published at the Great Seal Patent Office, 1858. 

t Among the early patentees, besides the names of Sturtevant and 
Rovenzon, we find those of Jordeus, Francke, Sir PhiUibert Vematt, 
and other foreigners of the above nations. 



IRON-SMELTING BY PIT-COAL. — DUD DUDLEY. 69 

naces, with bellows." This patent was taken out at the 
instance of his son Dud Dudley, whose stoiy Ave gather 
partly from his treatise entitled Metallum 3fartis, and 
partly from various petitions presented by him to the 
king, which are preserved in the State Paper Office, and 
it runs as follows : — 

Dud Dudley was born in 1599, the natural son of Ed- 
ward Lord Dudley of Dudley Castle in the county of 
"Worcester. He was the fourth of eleven children by the 
same mother, who is described in the pedigree of the 
family given in the Herald's visitation of the county of 
Stafford in the year 1663, signed by Dud Dudley himself, 
as " Elizabeth, daughter of William Tomlinson of Dudley, 
concubine of Edward Lord Dudley." Dud's eldest 
brother is described in the same pedigi'ee as Robert 
Dudley, Squire, of Netherton Hall ; and as his sisters 
mostly married well, several of them county gentlemen, 
it is obvious that the family, notwithstanding that the 
children were born out of wedlock, held a good position 
in their neighborhood, and were regarded with respect. 
Lord Dudley, though married and having legitimate heirs 
at the time, seems to have attended to the up-bringing of 
his natural children ; educating them carefully, and after- 
wards employing them in confidential offices connected 
with the management of his extensive property. Dud 
describes himself as taking great delight, when a youth, 
in his father's iron-works near Dudley, where he obtained 
considerable knowledge of the vai'ious processes of the 
manufacture. 

The town of Dudley was already a centre of the iron 
manufacture, though chiefly of small wares, such as nails, 
horseshoes, keys, locks, and common agricultural tools ; 
and it was estimated that there were about twenty thou- 



70 INDUSTEIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

sand smiths and workers in iron of various kinds living 
within a circuit of ten miles of Dudley Castle. But, as 
in the southern counties, the production of iron had suf- 
fered great diminution from the want of fuel in the dis- 
trict, " though formerly a mighty woodland country " ; 
and many important branches of the local trade were 
brought almost to a stand-still. Yet there was an extraor- 
dinary abundance of coal to be met with in the neigh- 
borhood, — coal in some places lying in seams ten feet 
thick, — iron-stone foiir feet thick immediately under the 
coal, with limestone conveniently adjacent to both. The 
conjunction seemed almost providential, — "as if," ob- 
serves Dud, " God had decreed the time when and how 
these smiths should be supplied, and this island also, with 
iron, and most especially that this cole and iron-stone 
should give the first and just occasion for the invention of 
smelting iron with pit-cole " ; though, as we have already 
seen, all attempts heretofore made with that object had 
practically failed. 

Dud was a special favorite of the Earl his father, who 
encouraged his speculations with reference to the improve- 
ment of the iron manufacture, and gave him an education 
calculated to enable him to turn his excellent practical 
abilities to account. He was studying at Baliol College, 
Oxford, in the year 1619, when the Earl sent for him to 
take charge of an iron furnace and two forges in the chase 
of Pensnet in Worcestershire. He was no sooner installed 
manager of the works, than, feeling hampered by the want 
of wood for fuel, his attention was directed to the em- 
ployment of pit-coal as a substitute. He altered his fur- 
nace accordingly, so as to adapt it to the new process, and 
the result of the first trial was such as to induce him to 
persevere. It is nowhere stated in Dud Dudley's trea- 



lEON-SJMELTING BY PIT-COAL. — DUD DUDLEY. 71 

tise what was the precise nature of the method adopted by 
him ; but it is most probable that, in endeavoring to sub- 
stitute coal for wood as fuel, he would subject the coal to 
a process similar to that of charcoal-burning. The result 
would be what is called Coke ; and as Dudley informs us 
that he followed up his first experiment with a second 
blast, by means of which he was enabled to produce good 
mai-ketable iron, the presumption is that his success was 
also due to an improvement of the blast which he con- 
trived for the purpose of keeping up the active combustion 
of the fuel. Though the quantity produced by the new 
process was comparatively small, — not more than three 
tons a week from each furnace, — Dudley anticipated 
that greater experience would enable him to increase 
the quantity; and at aU events he had succeeded in 
proving the practicability of smelting iron with fuel 
made from pit-coal, which so many before him had tried 
in vaia. 

Immediately after the second trial had been made with 
such good issue, Dud wrote to his father the Earl, then in 
London, informing him what he had done, and desiring 
him at once to obtain a patent for the invention from 
King James. This was readily granted, and the patent 
(No. 18), dated the 22d February, 1620, was taken out 
in the name of Xiord Dudley himself. 

Dud proceeded with the manufacture of iron at Pensnet, 
and also at Cradley in Stafibrdshire, where he erected 
another furnace ; and a year after the patent was granted 
he was enabled to send up to the Tower, by the King's 
command, a considerable quantity of the new iron for trial. 
Many experiments were made with it : its qualities were 
fairly tested, and it was pronounced " good merchantable 
iron." Dud adds, in his treatise, that his brother-in-law, 



72 INDUSTEIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

Richard Parkshouse, of Sedgeley,* " had a fowling-gun 
there made of the pit-cole iron," which was " well ap- 
proved." There was therefore every prospect of the new 
method of manufacture becoming fairly established, and 
with greater experience further improvements might with 
confidence be anticipated, when a succession of calamities 
occurred to the inventor which involved him in difficulties, 
and put an effectual stop to the progress of his enterprise. 
The new works had been in successful operation little 
more than a year, when a flood, long after known as the 
" Great May-day Flood," swept away Dudley's principal 
works at Cradley, and otherwise inflicted much damage 
throughout the district. " At the market town called 
Stourbridge," says Dud, in the course of his curious nar- 
rative, " although the author sent with speed to preserve 
the people from drowning, and one resolute man was car- 
ried from the bridge there in the daytime, the nether part 
of the town was so deep in water that the people had 
much ado to preserve their lives in the uppermost rooms 
of then- houses." Dudley himself received very little 
sympathy for his losses. On the contrary, the iron smelt- 
ers of the district rejoiced exceedingly at the destruction 
of his works by the flood. They had seen him making 
good iron by his new patent process, and selling it cheaper 
than they could afford to do. They accordingly put in 

* Mr. Parkshouse was one of the esquires to Sir Ferdinando Dudley 
(the legitimate son of the Earl of Dudley) when he was made Knight 
of the Bath. Sir Ferdinando's only daughter Frances married Humble 
Ward, son and heir of William Ward, goldsmith and jeweller to Charles 
the First's queen. Her husband having been created a baron by the 
title of Baron Ward of Birmingham, and Frances becoming Baroness 
of Dudley in her own right on the demise of her father, the baronies 
of Dudley and Ward thus became united in their eldest son Edward 
in the year 1697. 



IRON-SMELTING BY PIT-COAL. — DUD DUDLEY. 73 

circulation all manner of disparaging reports about his 
iron. It was bad iron, not fit to be used ; indeed, no iron, 
except what was smelted with charcoal of wood, could be 
good. To smelt it with coal was a dangerous innovation, 
and could only result in some great public calamity. 
The iroimiasters even appealed to King James to put a 
stop to Dud's manufacture, alleging that his iron was not 
merchantable. And then came the great flood, which 
swept away his works ; the hostile ironmasters now hoping 
that there was an end forever of Dudley's pit-coal iron. 

But Dud, with his wonted energy, forthwith set to 
work and repaired his furnaces and forges, though at 
great cost ; and in the course of a short time the new 
manufacture was again in full progress. The ironmasters 
raised a fresh outcry against him, and addressed another 
strong memorial against Dud and his iron to King James. 
This seems to have taken effect ; and in order to ascer- 
tain the quality of the article by testing it upon a large 
scale, the king commanded Dudley to send up to the 
Tower of London, with every possible speed, quantities 
of all the sorts of bar-iron made by him, fit for the " mak- 
ing of muskets, carbines, and iron for great bolts for ship- 
ping ; which iron," continues Dud, " being so tried by 
artists and smiths, the ironmasters and ironmongers were 
all silenced until the 21st year of King James's reign." 
The ironmasters then endeavored to get the Dudley pa- 
tent included in the monopolies to be abolished by the 
statute of that year ; but aU they could accomplish was 
the limitation of the patent to fourteen years instead of 
thirty-one ; the special exemption of the patent from the 
operation of the statute affording a sufficient indication of 
the importance already attached to the invention. After 
that time Dudley " went on with his invention cheerfully, 



74 INDUSTRIAL BIOGEAPHT. 

and made annually great store of iron, good and mer- 
chantable, and sold it unto diverse men at twelve pounds 
per ton." " I also," said he, " made all sorts of cast-iron 
wares, as brewing cisterns, pots, mortars, &c., better and 
cheaper than any yet made in these nations with charcoal, 
some of which are yet to be seen by any man (at the au- 
thor's house in the city of "Worcester) that desires to be 
satisfied of the truth of the invention." 

Notwithstanding this decided success, Dudley encoun- 
tered nothing but trouble and misfortune. The iron- 
masters combined to resist his invention ; they fastened 
lawsuits upon him, and succeeded in getting him ousted 
from his works at Cradley.^ From thence he removed to 
Himley in the county of Stafford, where he set up a pit- 
coal furnace ; but being without the means of forging the 
iron into bars, he was constrained to sell the pig-iron to 
the charcoal ironmasters, " who did him much prejudice, 
not only by detaining his stock, but also by disparaging 
his iron." He next proceeded to erect a large new fur- 
nace at Hasco Bridge, near Sedgeley, in the same county, 
for the purpose of carrying out the manufacture on the 
most improved principles. This furnace was of stone, 
twenty-seven feet square, provided with unusually large 
bellows ; and when in full work he says he was enabled 
to turn out seven tons of iron per week, " the greatest 
quantity of pit-coal iron ever yet made in Great Britain." 
At the same place he discovered and opened out new 
workings of coal ten feet thick, lying immediately over 
the iron-stone, and he prepared to carry on his operations 
on a large scale ; but the new works were scarcely fin- 
ished when a mob of rioters, instigated by the charcoal 
ironmasters, broke in upon them, cut in pieces the new 
bellows, destroyed the machinery, and laid the results of 



IRON-SMELTING BY PIT-COAL. — DUD .DUDLEY. 75 

all Ms deep-laid ingenuity and persevering industry in 
ruins. From that time forward Dudley was allowed no 
rest nor peace : he was attacked by mobs, worried by 
lawsuits, and eventually overwhelmed by debts. He was 
then seized by his creditors and sent up to London, where 
he was held a prisoner in the Comptoir for several thou- 
sand pounds. The charcoal-iron men thus for a time re- 
mained masters of the field. 

Charles I. seems to have taken pity on the suflPering 
inventor; and on his earnest petition, setting forth the 
great advantages to the nation of his invention, from 
which he had as yet derived no advantage, but only 
losses, sufferings, and persecution, the King granted bim 
a renewal of his patent* in the year 1638 ; three other 
gentlemen joining him as partners, and doubtless provid- 
ing the requisite capital for carrying on the manufacture 
after the plans of the inventor. But Dud's evil fortune 
continued to pursue him. The patent had scarcely been 
secured ere the Civil War broke out, and the arts of 
peace must at once perforce give place to the arts of 
war. Dud's nature would not suffer him to be neutral at 
such a time ; and when the nation divided itself into two 
hostile camps, his predilections being strongly loyalist, 
he took the side of the King with his father. It would 
appear from a. petition presented by him to Charles 11. 
in 1660, setting forth his sufferings in the royal cause, 
and praying for restoral to certain offices which he had 
enjoyed under Charles I., that as early as the year 1637 
he had been employed by the King on a mission into 
Scotland,! in the train of the Marquis of Hamilton, the 

* Patent No. 117, Old Series, granted in 1638 to Sir George Horsey, 
David Ramsey, Roger Foulke, and Dud Dudley. 
t By his own account, given in Metallum Mortis, while in Scotland 



76 INDUSTRIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

King's Commissioner. Again in 1639, leaving his iron- 
works and partners, he accompanied Charles on his expe- 
dition across the Scotch border, and was present with the 
army until its discomfiture at Newburn near Newcastle in 
the following year. 

The sword was now fairly drawn, and Dud seems for 
a time to have abandoned his it-on-works and followed en- 
tirely the fortunes of the King. He was sworn surveyor 
of the Mews or Armory in 1640, but, being unable to pay 
for the patent, another was sworn in in his place. Yet 
his loyalty did not falter, for in the beginning of 1642, 
when Charles set out from London, shortly after the fall 
of Strafford and Laud, Dud went with him.* He was 
present before Hull when Sir John Hotham shut its gates 
in the king's face ; at York when the royal commissions 
of array were sent out enjoining all loyal subjects to send 
men, arms, money, and horses, for defence of the king 
and maintenance of the law ; at Nottingham, where the 
royal standard was raised ; at Coventry, where the towns- 
people refused the king entrance and fired upon his troops 
from the walls ; at EdgehiU, where the first great but in- 

in 1637, he visited the Highlands as well as the Lowlands, spending 
the whole summer of that year " in opening of mines and making of 
discoveries " ; spending part of the time with Sir James Hope of Lead 
Hills, near where, he says, " he got gold." It does not appear, how- 
ever, that any iron -forges existed in Scotland at the time; indeed, 
Dudley expressly says that " Scotland maketh no iron " ; and in his 
treatise of 1665 he urges that the Corporation of the Mines Royal 
should set him and his inventions at work to enable Scotland to enjoy 
the benefit of a cheap and abundant supply of the manufactured 
article. 

* The Journals of the House of Commons, of the 13th June, 1642, 
contain the resolution " that Captain Wolseley, Ensign Dudley, and 
John Lometon be forthwith sent for, as delinquents, by the Serjeant- 
at-Arms attending on the House, for giving interruption to the execu- 
tion of the ordinance of the militia in the county of Leicester." 



IKON-SMELTING BY PIT-COAL. — DUD DUDLEY. 77 

decisive battle was fought between the contending parties ; 
in short, as Dud Dudley states in his petition, he was 
" in most of the battailes that year, and also supplyed his 
late sacred Majestie's magazines of Stafford, Worcester, 
Dudley Castle, and Oxford, with arms, shot, drakes, 
and cannon ; and also, became major unto Sir Frauncis 
Worsley's regiment, which was much decaied." 

In 1643, according to the statement contained in his 
petition above referred to, Dud Dudley acted as military 
engineer in setting out the fortifications of Worcester and 
Stafford, and furnishing them with ordnance. After the 
taking of Lichfield, in which he had a share, he was made 
Colonel of Dragoons, and accompanied the Queen with 
his regiment to the royal head-quarters at Oxford. The 
year after we find him at the siege of Gloucester, then 
at the first battle of Newbury leading the forlorn hope 
with Sir George Lisle, afterwards marching with Sir 
Charles Lucas into the associate counties, and present at 
the royalist rout at Newport. That he was esteemed a 
vaHant and skilful ofiicer is apparent from the circum- 
stance, that in 1645 he was appointed general of Prince 
Maurice's train of artillery, and afterwards held the same 
rank under Lord Ashley. The iron districts being still 
for the most part occupied by the royal armies, our mili- 
tary engineer turned his practical experience to account 
by directing the forging of drakes * of bar-iron, which 
were found of great use, giving up his own dwelling- 
house in the city of Worcester for the purpose of carrying 
on the manufacture of these and other arms. But Wor- 
cester and the western towns fell before the Parliamen- 
tarian armies in 1646, and all the iron- works belonging to 

* Small pieces of artiUeiy, specimens of whicli are still to be seen 
in the musemn at Woolwich Arsenal and at the Tower. 



78 INDUSTRIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

royalists, from which the principal supplies of arms had 
been drawn by the king's army, were forthwith destroyed. 

Dudley fully shared in the dangers and vicissitudes of 
that trying period, and bore his part throughout like a 
valiant soldier. For two years nothing was heard of 
Mm, until in 1648, when the king's party drew together 
again, and made head in different parts of the country, 
north and south. Goring raised his standard in Essex, 
but was driven by Fairfax into Colchester, where he de- 
fended himself for two months. While the siege was in 
progress, the royalists determined to make an attempt to 
raise it. On this Dud Dudley again made his appearance 
in the field, and, joining sundry other counties, he pro- 
ceeded to raise 200 men, mostly at his own charge. 
They were, however, no sooner mustered in Bosco Bello 
woods near Madeley, than they were attacked by the 
Parliamentarians, and dispersed or taken prisoners. Dud 
was among those so taken, and he was first carried to 
Hartlebury Castle and thence to "Worcester, where he 
was imprisoned. Recounting the sufferings of himself 
and his follower on this occasion, in the petition pre- 
sented to Charles II. in 1660,* he says, " 200 men were 
dispersed, killed, and some taken, namely, Major Har- 
court. Major Elliotts, Capt. Long, and Cornet Hodgetts, 
of whom Major Harcourt was miserably burned with 
matches. The petitioner and the rest were stripped al- 
most naked, and in triumph and scorn carried up to the 
city of Worcester (which place Dud had fortified for the 
king), and kept close prisoners, with double guards set 
upon the prison and the city." 

Notwithstanding this close watch and durance, Dudley 
and Major Elliotts contrived to break out of jail, making 

* State Paper Office, Dom. Charles H., Vol. XI. 54. 



lEON-SMELTING BY PIT-COAL. — DUD DUDLEY. 79 

their way over the tops of the houses, afterwards passing 
the guards at the city gates, and escaping into the open 
country. Being hotly pursued, they travelled during the 
night, and took to the trees during the daytime. They 
succeeded in reaching London, but only to drop again 
into the lion's mouth ; for first Major Elliotts was cap- 
tured, then Dudley, and both were taken before Sir John 
Warner, the Lord Mayor, who forthwith sent them before 
the " cursed comnodttee of iasurrection," as Dudley calls 
them. The prisoners were summarily sentenced to be 
shot to death, and were meanwhile closely imprisoned ia 
the Gatehouse at Westminster, with other Royalists. 

The day before their intended execution, the prisoners 
formed a plan of escape. It was Sunday morning, the 
20th August, 1648, when they seized their opportunity, 
" at ten of the clocke in sermon time " ; and, overpower- 
ing the jailers, Dudley, with Sir Henry Bates, Major 
Elliotts, Captain South, Captain Paris, and six others, 
succeeded in getting away, and making again for the open 
country. Dudley had received a wound in the leg, and 
could only get along with great difficulty. He records that 
he proceeded on crutches, through Worcester, Tewkes- 
bury, and- Gloucester, to Bristol, having been " fed three 
weeks in private in an enemy's hay-mow." Even the 
most lynx-eyed Parliamentarian must have failed to rec- 
ognize the quondam royalist general of artillery in the 
helpless creature dragging himself along upon crutches ; 
and he reached Bristol in safety. 

His military career now over, he found himself abso- 
lutely penniless. His estate of about 200/. per annum 
had been sequestrated and sold by the government ; * his 

* The Journals of the House of Commons, on the 2d November, 1652, 
have the following entry: "The House this day resumed the debate 



80 INDUSTKIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

house in Worcester had been seized, and his sickly wife 
turned out of doors ; and his goods, stock, great shop, and 
iron-works, which he himself valued at 2,000?., were de- 
stroyed. He had also lost the offices of Sergeant-at-arms, 
Lieutenant of Ordnance, and Surveyor of the Mews, 
which he had held under the king ; in a word, he found 
himself reduced to a state of utter destitution. 

Dudley was for some time under the necessity of liv- 
ing in great privacy at Bristol ; but when the king had 
been executed, and the royalists were finally crushed at 
Worcester, Dud gradually emerged from his concealment. 
He was still the sole possessor of the grand secret of 
smelting iron with pit-coal, and he resolved upon one 
more commercial adventure, in the hope of yet turning it 
to good account. He succeeded in inducing Walter Ste- 
vens, linen-draper, and John Stone, merchant, both of 
Bristol, to join him as partners in an iron- work, which 
they proceeded to erect near that city. The buildings 
were well advanced, and nearly 700?, had been expended, 
when a quarrel occurred between Dudley and his part- 
ners, which ended in the stoppage of the works, and the 
concern being thrown into chancery. Dudley alleges 
that the other partners "cunningly drew him into a 
bond," and " did unjustly enter staple actions in Bristol 
of great value against him, because he was of the king's 
party " ; but it would appear as if there had been some 
twist or infirmity of temper in Dudley himself, which 
prevented him from working harmoniously with such per- 
sons as he became associated with in affairs of business. 

In the mean time other attempts were made to smelt 

upon the additional Bill for sale of several lands and estates forfeited 
to the Commonwealth for treason, when it was resolved that the name 
of Dud Dudley of Green Lodge be inserted into this Bill." 



IKON-SMELTING BY PIT-COAL. — DUD DUDLEY. 81 

iron with pit-coal. Dudley says that Cromwell and the 
then Parliament granted a patent to Captain Buck for 
the purpose ; and that Cromwell himself, Major Wild- 
man, and various others were partners in the patent. 
They erected furnaces and works in the Forest of 
Dean;* but, though Cromwell and his officers could 
fight and win battles, they could not smelt and forge iron 
with pit-coal. They brought one Dagney, an Italian 
glass-maker, from Bristol, to erect a new furnace for 
them, provided with sundry pots of glass-house clay ; but 
no success attended their efforts. The partners, knowing 
of Dudley's possession of the grand secret, invited him to 
visit their works ; but aU they could draw from him was, 
that they would never succeed in making iron to profit 
by the methods they were pursuing. They next pro- 
ceeded to erect other works at Bristol, but stiU they 
faUed. Major Wildman t bought Dudley's sequestrated 
estate, in the hope of being able to extort his secret of 
making iron with pit-coal ; but, aU their attempts proving 
abortive, they at length abandoned the enterprise in de- 

* Mr. Mushet, in his Papers on Iron, says that " although he had 
carefully examined every spot and relic in Dean Forest likely to de- 
note the site of Dud Dudley's enterprising but unfortunate experiment 
of making pig-iron with pit-coal," it had been without success; neither 
could he find any traces of the like operations of Cromwell and his 
partners. 

t Dudley says: " Major "Wildman, more barbarous to me than a 
wild man, although a minister, bought the author's estate, near 2001. 
per annum, intending to compell from the author his inventions of 
making iron with pit-cole, but afterwards passed my estate unto two 
barbarous brokers of London, that pulled down the author's two man- 
tion houses, sold 500 timber trees off his land, and to this day are his 
houses unrepaired." Wildman himself feU under the grip of Crom- 
well. Being one of the chiefs of the Eepublican party, he was seized 
at Exton, near Marlborough, in 1654, and imprisoned in Chepstow 
Castle. 

4* P 



82 INDUSTRIAL BIOGEAPHY. 

spair. In 1656, one Captain Copley obtained from 
Cromwell a further patent with a similar object ; and 
erected works near Bristol, and also in the Forest of 
Kingswood. The mechanical engineers employed by 
Copley failed in making his bellows blow ; on which he 
sent for Dudley, who forthwith " made his bellows to be 
blown feisibly " ; but Copley failed, like his predecessors, 
in making iron, and at length he too desisted from further 
experiments. 

Such continued to be the state of things untU the Ees- 
toration, when we find Dud Dudley a petitioner to the 
king for the renewal of his patent. He was also a peti- 
tioner for compensation in respect of the heavy losses he 
had sustained during the civil wars. The king was be- 
sieged by crowds of applicants of a similar sort, but Dud- 
ley was no more successful than the others. He failed in 
obtaining the renewal of his patent. Another applicant 
for the hke privilege, probably having greater interest at 
court, proved more successful. Colonel Proger and three 
others * were granted a patent to make iron with coal ; 
but Dudley knew the secret, which the new patentees did 
not ; and their patent came to nothing. 

Dudley continued to address the king in importunate 
petitions, asking to be restored to his former offices of 
Sergeant-at-arms, Lieutenant of Ordnance, and Surveyor 
of the Mews or Armory. He also petitioned to be 
appointed Master of the Charter House in Smithfield, 

* June 13, 1661. Petition of Colonel James Proger and three others 
to the king for a patent for the sole exercise of their invention of melt- 
ing down iron and other metals with coal instead of wood, as the great 
consumption of coal [charcoal ?] therein causes detriment to shipping, 
&c. With reference thereon to Attorney-General Palmer, and his re- 
port, June 18, in favor of the petition. — State Papers, Charles II. 
(Dom.) Vol. XXXVn. 49. 



IKON-SMELTING BY PIT-COAL. — DUD DUDLEY. 83 

professing himself willing to take anytliing, or hold any 
living.* "We find him sending in two petitions to a simi- 
lar effect in June, 1660 ; and a third shortly after. The 
result was, that he was reappointed to the office of Ser- 
geant-at-arms ; but the Mastership of the Charter- House 
was not disposed of until 1662, when it fell to the lot of 
one Thomas Watson.f In 1661, we find a patent granted 

to WilHam Chamberlaine and Dudley, Esq., for the 

sole use of their new invention of plating steel, &c., and 
tinning the said plates ; but whether Dud Dudley was 
the person referred to, we are unable precisely to deter- 
mine. A few years later, he seems to have succeeded in 
obtaining the means of prosecuting his original invention; 
for in his Metallum Martis, published in 1665, he describes 
himself as living at Green's Lodge, in Staffordshire ; and 
he says that near it are four forges, Green's Forge, Swin 
Forge, Heath Forge, and Cradley Forge, where he prac- 
tises his "perfect invention." These forges, he adds, 
" have barred all or most part of their iron with pit-coal 
since the author's first invention in 1618, which hath pre- 
served much wood. In these four, besides many other 
forges, do the like \_sic\ ; yet the author hath had no 
benefit thereby to this present." From that time forward, 
Dud becomes lost to sight. He seems eventually to have 
retired to St. Helen's in Worcestershire, where he died 
in 1684, in the eighty-fifth year of his age. He was 

* In his second petition lie prays that a dwelling-hoTise, situated in 
Worcester, and belonging to one Baldwin, " a known traitor," may be 
assigned to him in lieu of Alderman Nash's, which had reverted to that 
individual since his return to loyalty ; Dudley reminding the king that 
his own house in that city had been given up by him for the service 
of his father, Charles I., and turned into a factory for arms. It does 
not appear that this part of his petition was successfiil. 

t State Papers, Vol. XXXI. Doquet Book, p. 89. ' 



84 INDUSTEIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

buried in the parish church there, and a monument, now 
destroyed, was erected to his memory, bearing the inscrip- 
tion partly set forth underneath.* 

* Pulvia et umbra sumus 
Memento mori. 
Dodo Dudley cMliarchi nobilis Edwardi nuper domini de Dudley 
filius, patri charus et regise Majestatis fidissimus subditus et servus in 
asserendo regem, in vindicando ecclesiam, in propugnando legem ao 
libertatem Anglicanam, saspe captus, anno 1648, semel condemnatus 
et tamen non decoUatus, renatum denuo vidit diadaema hie inconcussa 
semper virtute senex. 

Differt non aufert mortem longissima vita 
Sed diflfert multam eras hodiere mori. 
Quod nequeas vitare, fugls : 
Nee formldanda est. 
Plot frequently alludes to Dudley in his Natural History of Stafford- 
shire, and when he does so he describes him as the " worshipful Dud 
Dudley," showing the estimation in which he was held by his con- 
temporaries. 



CHAPTER IV. 

Andrew Yarranton. 

"There never have been wanting men to whom England's improvement by sea 
and land was one of the dearest thoughts of their lives, and to whom England's 
good was the foremost of their worldly considerations. And such, emphatically, 
was Andrew Yarranton, a true patriot in the best sense of the word." — Dove, 
Elements of Political Science. 

Tbla-T industry had a sore time of it during the civil 
wars will further appear from the following brief account 
of Andrew Yarranton, which may be taken as a compan- 
ion memoir to that of Dud Dudley. For Yarranton also 
was a Worcester ironmaster and a soldier, — though on 
the opposite side, — but more even than Dudley was he 
a man of public spirit and enterprise, an enlightened 
political economist (long before political economy had 
been recognized as a science), and in many respects a 
true national benefactor. Bishop Watson said that he 
ought to have had a statue erected to his memory be- 
cause of his eminent public services ; and an able modem 
writer has gone so far as to say of him that he was " the 
founder of English political economy, the first man in 
England who saw and said that peace was better than 
war, that trade was better than plunder, that honest in- 
dustry was better than martial greatness, and that the best 
occupation of a government was to secure prosperity at 
home, and let other nations alone." * Yet the name of 

* Pathick Edward Dove, JSleinents of Political Science. Edin- 
burgh, 1854. 



86 INDUSTEIAL BIOGEAPHY. 

Andrew Yarranton is scarcely remembered, or is at most 
known to only a few readers of half-forgotten books. 
The following brief outline of his history is gathered 
from his own narrative and from documents in the State 
Paper Office. 

Andrew Yarranton was bom at the farmstead of Lar- 
ford, in the parish of Astley, in "Worcestershire, in the 
year 1616.* In his sixteenth year he was put apprentice 
to a "Worcester linen-draper, and remained at that trade 
for some years ; but not liking it, he left it, and was lead- 
ing a country life when the civil wars broke out. Unlike 
Dudley, he took the side of the Parliament, and joined 
their army, in which he served for some time as a soldier. 
His zeal and abilities commended him to his officers, and 
he was raised from one position to another, until in the 
course of a few years we find him holduig the rank of 
captain. " "While a soldier," says he, " I had sometimes 
the honor and misfortune to lodge and dislodge an 
army " ; but this is all the information he gives us of 
his military career. In the year 1648 he was instru- 
mental in discovering and frustrating a design on the 
part of the Royalists to seize Doyley House in the coun- 
ty of Hereford, and other strongholds, for which he re- 

* A copy of the entries in the parish register relating to the various 
members of the Yarranton family, kindly forwarded to us by the Rev. 
H. W. Cookes, rector of Astley shows them to have resided in that 
parish for many generations. There were the Yarrantons of Yarran- 
ton, of Redstone, of Larford, of Brockenton, and of Longmore. With 
that disregard for orthography in proper names which prevailed some 
three hundred years since, they are indifferently designated as Yarran, 
Yarranton, and Yarrington. The name was most probably deisved 
from two farms named Great and Little Yarranton, or Yarran (origi- 
nally Yarhampton), situated in the parish of Astley. The Yarrantons 
frequently filled local offices in that parish, and we find several of them 
officiating at different periods as bailiffs of Bewdley. 



ANDREW YAREANTON. 87 

ceived tlie thanks of Parliament " for his ingenuity, dis- 
cretion, and valor," and a substantial reward of 500?.* 
He was also recommended to the Committee of "Worces- 
ter for further employment. But from that time we hear 
no more of him in connection with the civil wars. When 
Cromwell assumed the supreme control of affairs, Yar- 
ranton retired from the army with most of the Presby- 
terians, and devoted himself to industrial pursuits. 

"We then find him engaged in carrying on the manufac- 
ture of iron at Ashley, near Bewdley, in "Worcestershire. 
" In the year 1652," says he, " I entered upon iron-works, 
and plied them for several years." f He made it a sub- 
ject of his diligent study how to provide employment for 
the poor, then much distressed by the late wars. With 
the help of his wife, he estabhshed a manufacture of 
linen, which was attended with good results. Observing 
how the difficulties of communication, by reason of the 
badness of the roads, hindered the development of the 
rich natural resources of the western comities, J he applied 
himself to the improvement of the navigation of the larger 
rivers, making surveys of them at his own cost, and en- 
deavoring to stimulate local enterprise so as to enable 
bim to carry his plans into effect. 

While thus occupied, the restoration of Charles H. took 
place, and, whether through envy or enmity, Yarranton's 
activity excited the suspicion of the authorities. His 
journeys from place to place seemed to them to point to 
some Presbyterian plot on foot. On the 13th of Novem- 

* Journals of the House of Commons, 1st July, 1648. 

t Yakkajstom's England's Improvement by Sea and Land. Part I. 
London, 1677. 

X There seems a foundation of truth in the old English distich, — 
The North for Greatness, the East for Health, 
The South for Neatness, the West for Wealth. 



88 INDUSTRIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

ber, 1660, Lord Windsor, Lord-Lieutenant of the county, 
wrote to the Secretary of State: "There is a quaker 
in prison for speaking treason against his Majesty, and 
a countryman also, and Captain Yarrington for refusing 
to obey my authority."* It would appear from subse- 
quent letters that Yarranton miist have lain in prison for 
nearly two years, charged with conspiring against the 
king's authority, the only evidence against him consisting 
of some anonymous letters. At the end of May, 1662, he 
succeeded in making his escape from the custody of the 
Provost Marshal. The High Sheriff scoured the country 
after him at the head of a party of horse, and then he 
communicated to the Secretary of State, Sir Edward 
Nicholas, that the suspected conspirator could not be 
found, and was supposed to have made his way to Lon- 
don. Before the end of a month Yarranton was again in 
custody, as appears from the communication of certain 
justices of Surrey to Sir Edward Nicholas.f As no fur- 

* State Paper Office. Dom. Charles II. 1660 - 61. Yarranton after- 
wards succeeded in making a friend of Lord Windsor, as -would appear 
from his dedication of England's Improvement to his Lordship, whom 
he thanks for the encouragement he had given to him in his survey 
of several rivers with a view to their being rendered navigable. 

t The following is a copy of the document from the State Papers : — 
" John Bramfield, Geo. Moore, and Thos. Lee, Esqrs. and Justices 
of Surrey, to Sir Edw. Nicholas. — There being this day brought before 
us one Andrew Yarranton, and he accused to have broken prison, or 
at least made his escape out of the Marshalsea at Worcester, being 
there committed by the Deputy-Lieuts. upon suspicion of a plot in 
November last; we having thereupon examined him, he allegeth that 
his Majesty hath been sought unto on his behalf, and hath given order 
to yourself for his discharge, and a supersedeas against aU persons and 
warrants, and thereupon hath desired to appeal unto you. The which 
we conceiving to be convenient and reasonable (there being no positive 
charge against him before us), have accordingly herewith conveyed 
him unto you by a safe hand, to be further examined or disposed of as 
you shall find meet." — S. P. 0. Dom. Charles II. 23d June, 1662. 



ANDEEW YARRANTON. 89 

ther notice of Yarranton occurs in the State Papers, and 
as we shortly after find him publicly occupied in carrying 
out his plans for improving the navigation of the vs^estern 
rivers, it is probable that his innocency of any plot was 
established after a legal investigation. A few years later 
he published in London a 4to tract entitled " A Full Dis- 
covery of the First Presbyterian Sham Plot," which most 
probably contained a vindication of his conduct.* 

Yarranton was no sooner at liberty than we find him 
again occupied with his plans of improved inland naviga- 
tion. His first scheme was to deepen the small river 
Salwarp, so as to connect Droitwich with the Severn by 
a water communication, and thus facilitate the transport 
of the salt so abundantly yielded by the brine springs 
near that town. In 1665 the burgesses of Droitwich 
agreed to give him 750?. and eight salt vats in Upwich, 
valued at 801. per annum, with three quarters of a vat 
in Northwich, for twenty-one years, in payment for the 
work. But the times were still unsettled, and, Yarranton 
and his partner Wall not being rich, the scheme was not 
then carried into effect-f In the following year we find 
him occupied with a similar scheme to open up the navi- 
gation of the river Stour, passing by Stourport and Kid- 
derminster, and connect it by an artificial cut with the 
river Trent. Some progress was made with this under- 
taking, so far in advance of the age, but, like the other, 
it came to a stand-still for want of money, and more than 
a hundred years passed before it was carried out by a 
kindred genius, — James Brindley, the great canal-maker. 
Mr. Chambers says that when Yarranton's scheme was 

* We have been unable to refer to this tract, there being no copy of 
if in the British Museum. 
t Nash's WorceslersJiire, I. 806. 



90 INDUSTRIAL BIOGRAPHY- 

first brought forward, it met witli violent opposition and 
ridicule. The undertaking was thought wonderfully bold, 
and, joined to its great extent, the sandy, spongy nature 
of the ground, the high banks necessary to prevent the 
inundation of the Stour on the canal, furnished its oppo- 
nents, if not with sound argument, at least with very spe- 
cious topics for opposition and laughter.* Yarranton's 
plan was to make the river itself navigable, and by 
uniting it with other rivers, open up a communication 
with the Trent; while Brindley's was to cut a canal 
parallel with the river, and supply it with water from 
thence. Yarranton himself thus accounts for the failure 
of his scheme in England's Improvement hy Sea and 
Land : " It was my projection," he says, " and I will 
tell you the reason why it was not finished. The river 
Stour and some other rivers were granted by an Act 
of Parliament to certain persons of honor, and some pro- 
gress was made in the work, but within a small while 
after the Act passed f it was let fall again ; but it being 
a brat of my own, I was not willing it should be abortive, 
wherefore I made offers to perfect it, having a third part 
of the inheritance to me and my heirs forever, and we 
came to an agreement, upon which I fell on, and made it 
completely navigable from Stourbridge to Kidderminster, 
and carried down many hundred tons of coal, and laid 
out near 1,000/., and there it was obstructed for want of 
money." I 

* John Chambeks, Biograpliical Illustrations of Worcestershire. 
London, 1820. 

t The Act for making the Stour and Salwarp navigable originated 
in the Lords, and was passed in the year 1661. 

X Nash, in his History of Worcester, intimates that Lord Windsor 
subsequently renewed the attempt to make the Salwarp navigable. 
He constructed five out of the six locks, and then abandoned the 



ANDREW YARR ANTON. 91 

Another of Tarranton's far-sighted schemes of a similar 
kind was one to connect the Thames with the Severn by- 
means of an artificial cut, at the very place where, more 
than a century after his death, it was actually carried out 
by modern engineers. This canal, it appears, was twice 
surveyed under his direction by his son. He did, how- 
ever, succeed ia his own time in opening up the naviga- 
tion of the Avon, and was the first to carry barges upon 
its waters from Tewkesbury to Stratford. 

The improvement of agriculture, too, had a share of 
Tarranton's attention. He saw the soil exhausted by 
long tillage and constantly repeated crops of rye, and he 
urged that the land should have rest, or at least rotation 
of crop. With this object he iutroduced clover-seed, and 
supplied it largely to the farmers of the western counties, 
who foimd their land doubled in value by the new method 
of husbandry, and it shortly became adopted throughout 
the country. Seeing how commerce was retarded by the 
small accommodation provided for shipping at the then 
principal ports, Yarranton next made surveys and planned 
docks for the city of London ; but though he zealously 
advocated the subject, he found few supporters, and his 
plans proved fruitless. In this respect he was nearly a 
hundred and fifty years before his age, and the London 

scheme. Gough, in his edition of Camden's Britain, II. 357, London, 
1789, says : " It is not long since some of the boats made use of in 
Tarranton's navigation were found. Neither tradition nor our pro- 
jector's account of the matter perfectly satisfy us why this naviga/- 
tion was neglected We must therefore conclude that the numer- 
ous works and glass-houses upon the Stour, and in the neighborhood 

of Stourbridge, did not then exist, A. D. 1666 The navigable 

communication which now connects Trent and Severn, and which 

runs in the course of Tarranton's project, is already of general use 

The canal since executed under the inspection of Mr. Brindley, running 
parallel with the river, .... cost the proprietors 105,0002." 



92 INDUSTEIAL BIOGEAPHY. 

importers continued to conduct their shipping business in 
the crowded tideway of the Thames down even to the 
beginning of the present century. 

"While carrying on Ins iron-works, it occuired to Yar- 
ranton that it would be of great national advantage if the 
manufacture of tin-plate could be introduced into Eng- 
land. Although the richest tin-mines then known existed 
in this country, the mechanical arts were at so low an ebb 
that we were almost entirely dependent upon foreigners 
for the supply of the articles manufactured from the metal. 
The Saxons were the principal consumers of English tin, 
and we obtained from them in return nearly the whole 
of our tin-plates. All attempts made to manufacture them 
in England had hitherto failed; the beating out of the 
iron by hammers into laminae sufficiently thin and smooth, 
and the subsequent distribution and fixing of the film of 
tin over the surface of the iron, proving difficulties which 
the Enghsh manufacturers were unable to overcome. To 
master these difficulties the indefatigable Yarranton set 
himself to work. " Knowing," says he, " the usefulness 
of tin-plates and the goodness of our metals for that pur- 
pose, I did, about sixteen years since (i. e. about 1665), 
endeavor to find out the way for making thereof; where- 
upon I acquainted a person of much riches, and one that 
was very understanding in the iron manufacture, who was 
pleased to say that he had often designed to get the trade 
into England, but never could find out the way. Upon 
which it was agreed that a sum of moneys should be 
advanced by several persons,* for the defraying of my 

* In the dedication of his book, entitled England's Impi^ovement by 
Sea and Land, Part I., Yan-anton gives the names of the " noble pa- 
triots " who sent him on his journey of inquiry. They were Sir Walter 
Kirtham Blount, Baronet, Sir Samuel Baldwin and Sir Timothy Bald- 



ANDREW YAEEANTON. 93 

charges of travelling to the place where these plates are 
made, and from thence to bring away the art of making 
them. Upon which, an able fireman, that well under- 
stood the nature of iron, was made choice of to accompany 
me ; and being fitted with an ingenious interpreter that 
well understood the language, and that had dealt much in 
that commodity, we marched first for Hamburgh, then to 
Leipsic, and from thence to Dresden, the Duke of Sax- 
on/s court, where we had notice of the place where the 
plates were made ; which was in a large tract of moun- 
tainous land, running from a place called Seger-Hutton 
into a town called Awe [Au], being in length about 
twenty miles."* 

It is curious to find how much the national industry of 
England has been influenced by the existence from time 
to time of religious persecutions abroad, which had the 
eflfect of driving skilled Protestant artLsans, more particu- 
larly from Flanders and France, into England, where 
they enjoyed the special protection of successive English 
governments, and founded various important branches of 
manufacture. But it appears from the history of the tin 

■win, Knights, Thomas Foley and Philip Foley, Esquires, and six other 
gentlemen. The father of the Foleys was himself supposed to have 
introduced the art of iron-splitting into England by an expedient simi- 
lar to that adopted by Yarranton in obtaining a knowledge of the tin- 
plate manufacture {Self-Help, ■p. 145). The secret of the silk-throwing 
machinery of Piedmont was in like manner introduced into England 
by Mr. Lombe of Derby, who shortly succeeded in founding a flour- 
ishing branch of manufacture. These were indeed the days of romance 
and adventure in manufactures. 

* The district is known as the Erzgebirge or Ore Mountains, and 
the Riesengebirge or Giant Mountains. MacCulloch says that iipwards 
of five hundred mines are wrought in the former district, and that one 
thirtieth of the entire population of Saxony to this day derive their 
subsistence from mining industry and the manufacture of metallic pro- 
ducts. — Geographical Dictionary, II. 643, edition 1854. 



94 INDUSTEIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

manufactures of Saxony, that that country also had prof- 
ited in like manner by the religious persecutions of Ger- 
many, and even of England itself. Thus we are told by 
Yarranton that it was a Cornish miner, a Protestant 
banished out of England for his religion in Queen Mary's 
time, who discovered the tin mines at Awe, and that a 
Romish priest of Bohemia, who had been converted to 
Lutheranism and fled into Saxony for refuge, " was the 
chief instrument in the manufacture until it was perfected." 
These two men were held in great regard by the Duke of 
Saxony as well as by the people of the country ; for their 
ingenuity and industry proved the source of great pros- 
perity and wealth, " several fine cities," says Yarranton, 
" having been raised by the riches proceeding from the 
tin-works," — not less than eighty thousand men depend- 
ing upon the trade for their subsistence ; and when Yar- 
ranton visited Awe, he found that a statue had been 
erected to the memory of the Cornish -miner who first 
discovered the tin. 

Yarranton was very civilly received by the miners, 
and, contrary to his expectation, he was allowed freely to 
inspect the tin-works and examine the methods by which 
the iron-plates were roUed out, as well as the process of 
tinning them. He was even permitted to engage a num- 
ber of skilled workmen, whom he brought over with him 
to England for the purpose of starting the manvifacture in 
this country. A beginning was made, and the tin-plates 
manufactured by Yarranton's men were pronounced of 
better quality even than those made in Saxony. " Many 
thousand plates," Yarranton says, " were made from iron 
raised in the Forest of Dean, and were tinned over with 
Cornish tin ; and the plates proved far better than the 
German ones, by reason of the toughness and flexibleness 



ANDREW YARRANTON. 95 

of our forest iron. One Mr. Dison, a tinman in "Worces- 
ter, Mr. Lydiate near Fleet Bridge, and Mr. Harrison 
near the King's Bench, have wrought many, and know 
their goodness." As Yarranton's account was written and 
published during the lifetime of the parties, there is no 
reason to doubt the accuracy of his statement. 

Arrangements were made to carry on the manufacture 
upon a large scale ; but the secret having got wind, a pa- 
tent was taken out, or " trumpt up," as Yarranton calls 
it, for the manufacture, " the patentee being countenanced 
by some persons of quality," and Yarranton was precluded 
from carrying his operations further. It is not improba- 
ble that the patentee in question was William Chamber- 
laiae. Dud Dudley's quondam partner in the iron manu- 
facture.* "What with the patent being in our way," 
says Yarranton, " and the richest of our partners being 
afraid to offend great men in power, who had their eye 
upon us, it caused the thing to cool, and the making of 
the tin-plates was neither proceeded in by us, nor possibly 
could be by him that had the patent ; because neither he 
that hath the patent, nor those that have countenanced 
him, can make one plate fit for use." Yarranton's labors 
were thus lost to the English public for a time ; and we 
continued to import all our tin-plates from Germany until 
about sixty years later, when a tin-plate manufactory was 
established by Capel Hanbury, at Pontypool in Mon- 
mouthshire, where it has since continued to be successfully 
carried on. 

We can only briefly refer to the subsequent history of 
Andrew Yarranton. Shortly after his journey into Sax- 

* Chamberlaine and Dudley's first license wa's granted in 1661 for 
plating steel and tinning the said plates, and Chamberlaine's sole 
patent for "plating and tinning iron, copper, &c.," was granted in 
1673, probably the patent in question. 



96 INDUSTRIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

onj, he proceeded to Holland to examine the inland nav- 
igations of the Dutch, to inspect their linen and other 
manufactures, and to inquire into the causes of the then 
extraordinary prosperity of that country compared with 
England. Industry was in a very languishing state at 
home. " People confess they are sick," said Yarranton, 
"that trade is in a consumption, and the whole na- 
tion languishes." He therefore determined to ascertain 
whether something useful might not be learnt from the 
example of Holland. The Dutch were then the hardest 
working and the most thriving people in Europe. They 
were manufacturers and carriers for the world. Their 
fleets floated on every known sea ; and their herring- 
busses swarmed along our coasts as far north as the 
Hebrides. The Dutch supplied our markets with fish 
caught within sight of our own shores, while our coasting 
population stood idly looking on. Yarranton regarded 
this state of things as most discreditable, and he urged the 
establishment of various branches of home industry as the 
best way of outdoing the Dutch without fighting them. 

Wherever he travelled abroad, in Germany or in Hol- 
land, he saw industry attended by wealth and comfort, 
and idleness by poverty and misery. The same pursuits, 
he held, would prove as beneficial to England as they 
were abundantly proved to have been to Holland. The 
healthy life of work was good for all, — for individuals as 
for the whole nation ; and if we would outdo the Dutch, 
he held that we must outdo them in industry. But all 
must be done honestly and by fair means. " Common 
Honesty," said Yarranton, " is as necessary and needful 
in kingdoms and commonwealths that depend upon Trade, 
as discipline is in an army ; and where there is want of 
common Honesty in a kingdom or commonwealth, from 



ANDREW YAEEANTON. Q7 

thence Trade shall depart. For as the Honesty of all 
governments is, so shall be their Riches ; and as their 
Honor, Honesty, and Eiches are, so will be their Strength; 
and as their Honor, Honesty, Eiches, and Strength are, 
so will be their Trade. These are five sisters that go 
hand in hand, and must not be parted." Admirable sen- 
timents, which are as true now as they were two hundred 
years ago, when Yarranton urged them upon the attention 
of the English public. 

On his return from Holland, he accordingly set on foot 
various schemes of public utility. He stirred up a move- 
ment for the encouragement of the British fisheries. He 
made several journeys into Ireland for the purpose of 
planting new manufactures there. He surveyed the Eiver 
Slade with the object of rendering it navigable, and pro- 
posed a plan for improving the harbor of Dublin. He 
also surveyed the Dee, in England, with a view to its being 
connected with the Severn. Chambers says that on the 
decline of his popularity in 1677, he was taken by Lord 
Clarendon to Salisbury to survey the Eiver Avon, and 
find out how that river might be made navigable, and also 
whether a safe harbor for ships could be made at Christ- 
church ; and that having found where he thought safe 
anchorage might be obtained, his Lordship proceeded to 
act upon Yarranton's recommendations.* 

Another of his grand schemes was the establishment of 
the linen manufacture in the central counties of England, 
which, he showed, were well adapted for the growth of 
flax; and he calculated that if success attended his ef- 
forts, at least two millions of money then sent out of the 
country for the purchase of foreign linen would be re- 

* John Chambers, Biographical Illustrations of Worcestershire. 
London, 1820. 

5 G 



98 INDUSTRIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

tained at home, besides increasing tlie value of the land 
on which the flax was grown,- and giving remunerative 
employment to our own people, then emigrating for want 
of work. " Nothing but Sloth or Envy," he said, " can 
possibly hinder my labors from being crowned with the 
wished-for success; our habitual fondness for the one 
hath already brought us to the brink of ruin, and our 
proneness to the other hath almost discouraged all pious 
endeavors to promote our future happiness." 

In 1677 he published the first part of his England's 
Improvement hy Sea and Land, — a very remarkable 
book, full of sagacious insight as respected the future 
commercial and manufacturing greatness of England. 
Mr. Dove says of this book that Yarranton " chalks out 
in it the future course of Britain with as free a hand as 
if second-sight had revealed to him those expansions of 
her industrial career which never fail to surprise us, even 
when we behold them realized." Besides his extensive 
plans for making harbors and improving internal naviga- 
tion with the object of creating new channels for domestic 
industry, his schemes for extending the iron and the 
woollen trades, establishing the linen manufacture, and 
cultivating the home fisheries, we find him throwing out 
various valuable suggestions with reference to the means 
of facihtating commercial transactions, some of which 
have only been can-ied out in our own day. One of his 
grandest ideas was the establishment of a public bank, 
the credit of which, based upon the security of freehold 
land,* should enable its paper " to go in trade equal with 
ready money." A bank of this sort formed one of the 

* Yarranton's Land Bank was actually projected in 1695, and 
received the sanction of Parliament; though the Bank of England 
(founded in the preceding year) petitioned against it, and the scheme 
was dropped. 



ANDREW YAREANTON. 99 

principal means by which the Dutch had been enabled to 
extend their commercial transactions, and Yarranton ac- 
cordingly urged its introduction into England. Part of 
his scheme consisted of a voluntary register of real prop- 
erty, for the purpose of effecting simplicity of title, and 
obtaining relief from the excessive charges for law,* as 
well as enabling money to be readily raised for commer- 
cial purposes on security of the land registered. 

He pointed out very graphically the straits to which a 
man is put who is possessed of real property enough, but 
in a time of pressure is unable to turn himself round for 
want of ready cash. " Then," says he, " aU his creditors 
crowd to him as pigs do through a hole to a bean and 
pease rick." " Is it not a sad thing," he asks, " that a 
goldsmith's boy in Lombard Street, who gives notes for 
the moneys handed him by the merchants, should take up 
more moneys upon his notes in one day than two lords, 
fom" knights, and eight esquires in twelve months upon all 
their personal securities ? We are, as it were, cutting off 
our legs and arms to see who wiU feed the trunk. But 
we cannot expect this from any of our neighbors abroad, 
whose interest depends upon our loss." 

He therefore proposed his registry of property as a 
ready means of raising a credit for purposes of trade. 
Thus, he says, " I can both in England and Wales regis- 
ter my wedding, my burial, and my christening, and a 
poor parish-clerk is intrusted with the keeping of the 
book ; and that which is registered there is held good by 
our law. But I cannot register my lands, to be honest, to 
pay every man his own, to prevent those sad things that 

* It is interesting to note in passing that part of Yarranton's scheme 
has recently been carried into effect by the Act (25 and 26 Vict. c. 53) 
passed in 1862 for the Registration of Real Estate. 



100 INDUSTEIAL BIOGEAPHY. 

attend families for want thereof, and to have the great 
benefit and advantage that would come thereby. A regis- 
ter will quicken trade, and the land registered will be 
equal as cash in a man's hands, and the credit thereof 
will go and do in trade what ready money now doth." 
His idea was to raise money, when necessary, on the land 
registered, by giving security thereon after a form which 
he suggested. He would, in fact, have made land as gold 
now is, the basis of an extended currency ; and he rightly 
held that the value of land as a security must always be 
unexceptionable, and superior to any metallic basis that 
could possibly be devised. 

Tliis indefatigable man continued to urge his various 
designs upon the attention of the public until he was far 
advanced in years. He professed that he was moved to 
do so (and we believe him) solely by an ardent love for 
his country, " whose future floui'ishing," said he, " is the 
only reward I ever hope to see of all my labors." Yar- 
ranton, however, received but little thanks for his persis- 
tency, wliUe he encountered many rebuffs. The public, 
for the most part, turned a deaf ear to his entreaties ; and 
his writings proved of comparatively small avail, at least 
during his own lifetime. He experienced the lot of many 
patriots, even the purest, — the suspicion and detraction 
of his contemporaries. His old political enemies do not 
seem to have forgotten him, of which we have the evi- 
dence in certain rare " broadsides " still extant, twitting 
him with the failure of his schemes, and even trumping 
up false charges of disloyalty against him.* 

* One of these is entitled " A Coffee-house Dialogue, or a Discourse 

between Captain Y and a Young Barrister of the Middle Temple; 

with some Eeflections upon the Bill against the D. of Y." In this 
broadside, of 3^ pages folio, published about 1679, Yarranton is made 



ANDREW YARRANTON. 101 

In 1681 lie published the second part oi England's Im- 
provement,* in which he gave a summary account of its 
then limited growths and manufactures, pointing out that 
England and Ireland were the only northern kingdoms 
remaining unimproved ; he re-urged the benefits and ne- 
cessity of a voluntary register of real property ; pointed 
out a method of improving the Royal Navy, lessening the 
growing power of France, and establishing home fisher- 
ies ; proposed the securing and fortifying of Tangier ; 
described a plan for preventing fires in London, and re- 

to favor the Duke of York's exclusion from the throne, not only be- 
cause he was a papist, but for graver reasons than he dare express. 
Another scurrilous pamphlet, entitled " A Word Without Doors," was 
also aimed at him. Yarranton, or his friends, replied to the first 
attack in a folio of two pages, entitled " The Coffee-house Dialogue 
Examined and Refuted, by some Neighbors in the Country, well- 
wishers to the Kingdom's interest." The controversy was followed 
up by " A Continuation of the Coffee-house Dialogue," in which the 
chief interlocutor hits Yarranton rather hard for the miscarriage of his 
' improvements." "I know," says he, " when and where you under- 
took for a small charge to make a river navigable, and it has cost the 
proprietors about six times as much, and is not yet effective ; nor can 
any man rationally predict when it will be. I know since you left 
it your son undertook it, and this winter shamefully left his under- 
taking." Yarranton's friends immediately replied in a four-page folio, 
entitled " England's Improvements Justified ; and the Author thereof, 
Captain Y., vindicated from the Scandals in a paper called a Coffee- 
house Dialogue ; with some Animadversions upon the Popish Designs 
therein contained." The writer says he writes without the privity or 
sanction of Yarranton, but declares the dialogue to be a forgery, and 
that the alleged conference never took place. " His innocence, when 
he heard of it, only provoked a smile, with this answer, SpretavUescunt, 
falsehoods must perish, and are soonest destroyed by contempt ; so 
that he needs no further vindication." The writer then proceeds at 
some length to vindicate the Captain's famous work and the proposi- 
tions contained in it. 

* This work (especially with the plates) is excessively rare. There 
is a copy of it, in perfect condition, in the Grenville Library, British 
Museum. 



102 INDUSTEIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

ducing the charge for maintaining the Trained Bands | 
urged the formation of a harbor at Newhaven in Sussex j 
and, finally, discoursed at considerable length upon the 
tin, iron, linen, and woollen trades, setting forth various 
methods for their improvement. In this last section, 
after referring to the depression in the domestic tin trade 
(Cornish tin selling so low as 70s. the cwt.), he suggested 
a way of reviving it. With the Cornish tin he would 
combine " the Roman cinders and iron-stone in the Forest 
of Dean, which makes the best iron for most uses in the 
world, and works up to the best advantage, with delight 
and pleasure to the workmen." He then described the 
history of his own efforts to import the manufacture of 
tin-plates into England some sixteen years before, in 
which he had been thwarted by Chamberlaine's patent, 
as above described, — and offered sundry queries as to 
the utility of patents generally, which, says he, " have the 
tendency to drive trade out of the kingdom." Appended 
to the chapter on Tin is an exceedingly amusing dialogue 
between a tin-miner of Cornwall, an iron-miner of Dean 
Forest, and a traveller (himself). From this we gather 
that Yarranton's business continued to be that of an iron- 
manufacturer at his works at Ashley near Bewdley. 
Thus the iron-miner says, "About twenty-eight years since 
Mr. Yarranton found out a vast quantity of Roman cinders, 
near the walls of the city of Worcester, from whence he 
and others carried away many thousand tons or loads up 
the river Severn, unto their iron-furnaces, to be melted 
down into iron, with a mixture of the Forest of Dean 
iron-stone ; and within one hundred yards of the walls of 
the city of Worcester there was dug up one of the hearths 
of the Roman foot-blasts, it being then firm and in order, 
and was seven foot deep in the earth ; and by the side of 



ANDREW Y ARE ANT ON. 103 

the work there was found a pot of Eoman coin to the 
quantity of a peck, some of whicli was presented to Sir 
[Wm.] Dugdale, and part thereof is now in the King's 
Closet."* 

In the same year (1681) in which the second part 
of " England's Improvement " appeared, Yarranton pro- 
ceeded to Dunkirk for the purpose of making a personal 
survey of that port, then belonging to England ; and on 
his return he published a map of the town, harbor, and 
castle on the sea, with accompanying letter-press, in which 
he recommended, for the safety of British trade, the de- 
molition of the fortifications of Dunkirk before they were 
completed, which he held would only be for the purpose 
of their beiag garrisoned by the French king. His " FuU 
Discovery of the First Presbyterian Sham Plot" was 
published iu the same year ; and from that time nothing 
further is known of Andrew Yarranton. His name and 
his writiogs have been alike nearly forgotten ; and, 
though Bishop Watson declared of him that he deserved 
to have a statue erected to his memory as a great public 
benefactor, we do not know that he was so much as hon- 
ored with a tombstone ; for we have been unable, after 
careful inquiry, to discover when and where he died. 

Yarranton was a man whose views were far in advance 
of his age. The generation for whom he labored and 
wrote were not ripe for their reception and realization ; 
and his voice sounded among the people like that of one 
crying in the wilderness. But though his exhortations to 
industry and his large plans of national improvement 
failed to work themselves into realities in his own time, 

* Dr. Nash, in his History of Worcestersliire, has thrown some doubts 
upon this story; but Mr. Green, in his Historical Antiquities of the 
city, has made a most able defence of Yarranton' s statement (Vol. I. 
9, in foot-note). 



104; INDUSTEIAL BIOGEAPHT. 

he broke tlie ground, he sowed the seed, and it may be 
that even at this day we are in some degree reaping the 
results of his labors. At all events, his books still live to 
show how wise and sagacious Andrew Yarranton was, 
beyond his contemporaries, as to the true methods of es- 
tablishing upon sohd foundations the industrial prosperity 
of England. 



CHAPTER V. 

COALBROOKDALE IrON-WoRKS. The DaRBYS AND 

Retnoldses. 

" The triumph of the industrial arts will advance the cause of civilization more 
rapidly than its warmest advocates could have hoped, and contribute'to the per- 
manent prosperity and strength of the country far more than the most splendid 
victories of successful war." — C. Babbage, The Exposition 0/1851. 

Dud Dudley's invention of smelting iron with coke 
made of pit-coal was, like many others, bom before its 
time. It was neither appreciated by the ironmasters nor 
by the workmen. All schemes for smelting ore with any 
other fuel than charcoal made from wood were regarded 
with incredulity. As for Dudley's Metallum Martis, as 
it contained no specification, it revealed no secret ; and 
when its author died, his secret, whatever it might be, 
died with him. Other improvements were doubtless 
necessary before the invention could be turned to useful 
account. Thus, until a more powerful blowing-furnace 
had been contrived, the production of pit-coal iron must 
necessarily have been limited. Dudley himself does not 
seem to have been able to make more on an average than 
five tons a week, and seven tons at the outside. Nor 
was the iron so good as that made by charcoal ; for it is 
admitted to have been especially liable to deterioration 
by the sulphureous fumes of the coal in the process of 
manufacture. 

Dr. Plot, in his " History of Staffordshire," speaks of 
an experiment made by one Dr. Blewstone, a High Ger- 

5* 



106 INDUSTRIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

man, as " the last effort " made in that county to smelt 
iron ore with pit-coal. He is said to have " built his fur- 
nace at Wednesbury, so ingeniously contrived (that only 
the flame of the coal should come to the ore, with several 
other conveniences), that many were of opinion he would 
succeed in it. But experience, that great baffler of spec- 
ulation, showed it would not be ; that sulphureous vitri- 
olic steams that issue from the pyrites, which frequently, 
if not always, accompanies pit-coal, ascending with the 
flame, and poisoning the ore sufficiently to make it render 
much worse iron than that made with charcoal, though 
not perhaps so much worse as the body of the coal itself 
would possibly do." * Dr. Plot does not give the year in 
which this " last effort " was made ; but as we find that 
one Dr. Frederic de Blewston obtained a patent from 
Charles II. on the 25th October, 1677, for "a new and 
effectual way of melting down, forging, extracting, and 
reducing of iron and all metals and minerals with pit-coal 
and sea-coal, as well and effectually as ever hath yet been 
done by charcoal, and with much less charge " ; and as 
Dr. Plot's History, in which he makes mention of the 
experiment and its failure, was published in 1686, it is 
obvious that the trial must have been made between 
those years. 

As the demand for iron steadily increased with the in- 
creasing population of the country, and as the supply of 
timber for smelting purposes was diminishing from year 
to year, England was compelled to rely more and more 
upon foreign countries for its supply of manufactured 
iron. The number of English forges rapidly dwindled, 
and the arhount of the home production became insignifi- 
cant in comparison with what was imported from abroad. 

* Dr. Plot, Natural History of Staffordshire, 2d ed. 1686, p. 128. 



COALBROOKDALE IRON-WORKS. 107 

Tarranton, writing in 1676, speaks of " the many iron- 
works laid down in Kent, Sussex, Surrey, and in the 
north of England, because the iron of Sweadland, Flan- 
ders, and Spain, coming in so cheap, it cannot be made to 
j)rofit here." There were many persons, indeed, who 
held that it was better we should be supplied with iron 
from Spain than make it at home, in consequence of the 
great waste of wood involved by the manufacture ; but 
against this view Yarranton strongly contended, and held, 
what is as true now as it was then, that the manufacture 
of ii'on was the keystone of England's industrial pros- 
perity. He also apprehended great danger to the coun- 
try from want of ii-on in event of the contingency of 
a foreign war. " When the greatest part of the iron- 
works are asleep," said he, " if there should be occasion 
for great quantities of guns and bullets, and other sorts 
of iron commodities, for a present unexpected wai", and 
the Sound happen to be locked up, and so prevent iron 
coming to us, truly we should then be in a fine case ! " 

Notwithstanding these apprehended national perils 
arising from the want of iron, no steps seem to have 
been taken to supply the deficiency, either by planting 
woods on a large scale, as recommended by Yarranton, 
or by other methods ; and the produce of English iron 
continued steadily to decline. In 1720-30 there were 
found only ten furnaces remaining in blast in the whole 
Forest of Dean, where the iron-smelters were satisfied 
with working up merely the cinders left by the Romans. 
A writer of the time states that we then bought between 
two and three hundred thousand pounds' worth of foreign 
ii'on yearly, and that England was the best customer in 
Europe for Swedish and Russian iron.* By the middle 

* Joshua Gee, The Trade and Navigation of Great Britain con- 
aidered, 1731. 



108 INDUSTRIAL BIOGEAPHY. 

of the eighteentli ceutury the home manufacture had so 
much fallen off, that the total production of Great Britain 
is supposed to have amounted to not more than eighteen 
thousand tons a year ; four fifths of the iron used in the 
country being imported from Sweden.* 

The more that the remaining ironmasters became strait- 
ened for want of wood, the more they were compelled to 
resort to cinders and coke made from coal as a substitute. 
And it was found, that, under certain circumstances, this 
fuel answered the purpose almost as well as charcoal of 
wood. The coke was made by burning the coal in heaps 
in the open air, and it was usually mixed with coal and 
peat in the process of smelting the ore. Coal by itself 
was used by the country smiths for forging whenever 
they could procure it for their smithy fires ; and in the 
midland counties they had it brought to them, sometimes 
from great distances, slung in bags across horses' backs ; 
for the state of the roads was then so execrable as not 
to admit of its being led for any considerable distance in 
carts. At length we arrive at a period when coal seems 
to have come into general use, and when necessity led to 
its regular employment, both in smelting the ore and in 
manufacturing the metal. And this brings us to the 
establishment of the Coalbrookdale works, where the 
smelting of iron by means of coke and coal was first 
adopted on a large scale as the regular method of manu- 
facture. 

* When a bill was introduced into Parliament, in 1750, with the 
object of encouraging the importation of iron from our American 
colonies, the Sheffield tanners petitioned against it, on the ground 
that, if it passed, English iron would be undersold; many forges 
would consequently be discontinued ; in which case the timber used 
for fuel would remain uncut, and the tanners would thereby be de- 
prived of bark for the purposes of their trade ! 



THE COALBEOOKDALE IKON-WOEKS. 109 

Abraham Darby, the first of a succession of iron man- 
ufacturers who bore the same name, was the son of a 
farmer residing at Wrensnest, near Dudley. He served 
an apprenticeship to a maker of malt-kihis near Birming- 
ham, after which he married and removed to Bristol in 
1700, to begin business on his own account. Industry is 
of all politics and religions ; thus, Dudley was a EoyaHst 
and a Churchman, Yarranton was a Parliamentarian and 
a Presbyterian, and Abraham Darby was a Quaker. At 
Bristol he was joined by three partners of the same per- 
suasion, who provided the necessary capital to enable 
him to set up works at Baptist Mills, near that city, 
where he carried on the business of malt-mill making, 
to which he afterwards added brass and iron founding. 

At that period cast-iron pots were in very general use, 
forming the principal cooking utensils of the working 
class. The art of casting had, however, made such small 
progress in England that the pots were for the most part 
imported from abroad. Darby resolved, if possible, to 
enter upon this lucrative branch of manufacture ; and he 
proceeded to make a number of experiments in pot- 
making. Like others who had preceded him, he made 
his first moulds of clay ; but they cracked and burst, and 
one trial failed after another. He then determined to 
find out the true method of manufacturing the pots, by 
travelling into the country from whence the best were 
imported, in order to master the grand secret of the trade. 
With this object, he went over to Plolland in the year 
1706, and, after diligent inquiry, he ascertained that the 
only sure method of casting " Hilton ware," as such cast- 
ings were then called, was in moulds of fine, dry sand. 
This was the whole secret. 

Eeturning to Bristol, accompanied by some skilled 



110 INDUSTEIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

Dutcli workmen, Darby began the new manufacture, and 
succeeded to bis satisfaction. Tbe work was at first car- 
ried on with great secrecy, lest other makers should copy 
the art ; and the precaution was taken of stopping tbe key- 
bole of tbe workshop door while the casting was in pro- 
gress. To secure himself against piracy, be proceeded to 
take out a patent for the process in tbe year 1708, and it 
was granted for the term of fourteen years. Tbe recital 
of the patent is curious, as showing tbe backward state of 
English iron-founding at that time. It sets forth that, 
" whereas our trusty and well-beloved Abraham Darby, 
of our city of Bristol, smith, hath by bis petition humbly 
represented to us, that by bis study, industry, and ex- 
pense, be bath found out and brought to perfection a new 
way of casting iron bellied pots and other iron bellied 
ware in sand only, without loam or clay, by which such 
iron pots and other ware may be cast fine and with more 
ease and expedition, and may be afforded cheaper than 
they can be by the way commonly used ; and in regard 
to their cheapness may be of great advantage to tbe poor 
of this our kingdom, who for the most part use such ware, 
and in all probability will prevent tbe merchants of Eng- 
land going to foreign markets for such ware, from whence 
great quantities are imported, and likewise may in time 
supply other markets with that manufacture of our do- 
minions," &c " grants tbe said Abraham Darby the 

full power and sole privilege to make and sell such pots 
and ware for and during tbe term of fourteen years 
thence ensuing." 

Darby proceeded to make arrangements for carrying 
on the manufacture upon a large scale at tbe Baptist 
JVIills ; but the other partners hesitated to embark more 
capital in the concern, and at length refused their concur- 



THE COALBEOOKDALE lEON-WORKS. Ill 

rence. Determined not to be balked in his enterprise, 
Darby abandoned the Bristol firm, and in the year 1709 
he removed to Coalbrookdale in Shropshire, with the in- 
tention of prosecuting the enterprise on his own account. 
He took the lease of a little furnace which had existed at 
the place for more than a century, as the records exist of 
a " smethe " or " smeth-house " at Coalbrookdale in the 
time of the Tudors. The woods of oak and hazel which 
at that time filled the beautiful dingles of the dale, and 
spread in almost a continuous forest to the base of the 
Wrekm, furnished abundant fuel for the smithery. As 
the trade of the Coalbrookdale firm extended, these woods 
became cleared, until the same scarcity of fuel began to 
be experienced that had already desolated the forests of 
Sussex, and brought the manufacture of iron in that quar- 
ter to a stand-stUl. 

It appears from the " Blast Furnace Memorandum 
Book" of Abraham Darby, which we have examined, 
that the make of iron at the Coalbrookdale foundery, in 
1713, varied from five to ten tons a week. The princi- 
pal articles cast were pots, kettles, and other " hoUow 
ware," direct from the smelting-furnace ; the rest of the 
metal was run into pigs. In coiu-se of time we find that 
other castings were turned out : a few grates, smoothing- 
irons, door-frames, w^eights, baking-plates, cart-bushes, 
iron pestles and mortars, and occasionally a tailor's goose. 
The trade gradually increased, until we find as many as 
one hundred and fifty pots and kettles cast in a week. 

The fuel used in the furnaces appears, from the Darby 
Memorandum-Book, to have been at first entirely char- 
coal ; but the growing scarcity of wood seems to have 
gradually led to the use of coke, brays or small coke, and 
peat. An abundance of coals existed in the neighbor- 



112 INDUSTEIAL BIOGKAPHY. 

hood : by rejecting those of inferior quality, and coking 
the others with great care, a combustible was obtained 
better fitted even than charcoal itself for the fusion of 
that particular kind of ore which is found in the coal- 
measures. Thus we find Darby's most favorite charge 
for his furnaces to have been five baskets of coke, two of 
brays, and one of peat ; next followed the ore, and then 
the limestone. The use of charcoal was gradually given 
up as the art of smelting with coke and brays improved, 
most probably aided by the increased power of the 
furnace-blast, until at length we find it entirely discon- 
tinued. 

The castings of Coalbrookdale gradually acquired a 
reputation, and the trade of Abraham Darby continued 
to increase until the date of his death, which occurred 
at Madeley Court in 1717. His sons were too young at 
the time to carry on the business which he had so suc- 
cessfully started, and several portions of the works were 
sold at a serious sacrifice. But when the sons had grown 
up to manhood, they too entered upon the business of 
iron-founding ; and Abraham Darby's son and grandson, 
both of the same name, largely extended the operations 
of the firm, until Coalbrookdale, or, as it was popularly 
called, "Bedlam," became the principal seat of one of 
the most important branches of the iron trade. 

There seems to be some doubt as to the precise time 
when pit-coal was first regularly employed at Coalbrook- 
dale in smelting the ore. Mr. Scrivenor says, " Pit-coal 
was first used by Mr. Abraham Darby, in his furnace at 
Coalbrookdale, in 1713 "; * but we can find no confirma- 
tion of this statement in the records of the Company. 
It is probable that Mr. Darby used raw coal, as was done 

* Eistorij of the Iron Trade, p. 56. 



THE COALBKOOKDALE IRON-WOEKS. 113 

in the Forest of Dean at the same time,* in the process 
of calcining the ore ; but it would appear from his own 
Memoranda that coke only was used in the process of 
smelting. We infer from other circumstances that pit- 
coal was not employed for the latter purpose untU a 
considerably later period. The merit of its introduction, 
and its successful use in iron-smelting, is due to Mr. 
Richard Ford, who had married a daughter of Abraham 
Darby, and managed the Coalbrookdale works in 1747. 
In a paper by the Rev. Mr. Mason, Woodwardian Pro- 
fessor at Cambridge, given in the " Philosophical Trans- 
actions " for that year,t the first account of its successful 
employment is stated as follows : " Several attempts have 
been made to run iron-ore with pit-coal ; he (Mr. Mason) 
thinks it has not succeeded anywhere, as we have had no 
account of its being practised; but Mr. Ford, of Coal- 
brookdale in Shropshire, from iron-ore and coal, both got 
in the same dale, makes iron brittle or tough as he pleases, 

* See Mr. Powle's account of tlie Iron Works in the Forest of Dean 
(1677-78), in the Philosophical Transactions, Vol. II. p. 418, -where he 
says : " After they have pounded their ore, their first work is to calcine 
it, "which is done in kUns, much after the fashion of ordinary lime- 
kilns. These they fill up to the top -with coal and ore, stratum super 
stratum, until it be full ; and so setting fire to the bottom, they let it 
burn till the coal be wasted, and then renew the kilns with fresh ore 
and coal, in the same manner as before. This is done without fusion 
of the metal, and serves to consume the more drossy parts of the ore 
and to make it fi-iable." The writer then describes the process of 
smelting the ore mixed with cinder in the furnaces, where, he says, 
the fuel is "always of charcoal." "Several attempts," he adds, 
"have been made to introduce the use of sea-coal in these works 
instead of charcoal, the former being to be had at an easier rate than 
the latter; but hitherto they have proved inefifectual, the workmen 
finding by experience that a sea-coal fire, how vehement soever, will 
not penetrate the most fixed parts of the ore, and so leaves miich of 
the metal unmelted." 

t Phil. Trans., Vol. XLIV. 305. 



114 INDUSTRIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

there being cannon thus cast so soft as to bear turning 
like wrought-iron." Most probably, however, it was not 
until the time of Richard Reynolds, who succeeded Abra- 
ham Darby the second in the management of the works 
in 1757, that jDit-coal came into large and regular use in 
the blasting-furnaces as well as the fineries of Coalbrook- 
dale. 

Richard Reynolds was bom at Bristol in 1735. His 
parents, like the Darbys, belonged to the Society of 
Friends, and he was educated in that persuasion. Being 
a spirited, lively youth, the " old Adam " occasionally 
cropped out in him ; and he is even said, when a young 
man, to have been so much fired by the heroism of the 
soldier's character that he felt a strong desire to embrace 
a military career ; but tliis feeHng soon died out, and he 
dropped into the sober and steady rut of the Society. 
After serving an apprenticeship in his native town, he 
was sent to Coalbrookdale on a mission of business, where 
he became acquainted with the Darby family, and shortly 
after married Hannah, the daughter of Abraham the sec- 
ond. He then entered upon the conduct of the iron and 
coal works at Ketley and Horsehay, where he resided for 
six years, removing to Coalbrookdale in 1763, to take 
charge of the works there, on the death of his father- 
in-law. 

By the exertions and enterprise of the Darbys, the 
Coalbrookdale Works had become greatly enlarged, giv- 
ing remunerative employment to a large and increasing 
population. The firm had extended their operations far 
beyond the boundaries of the Dale : they had established 
founderies at London, Bristol, and Liverpool, and agencies 
at Newcastle and Truro for the disposal of steam-engines 
and other iron machinery used in the deep mines of those 



THE COALBEOOKDALE IRON-WORKS. 115 

districts. "Watt had not yet perfected his steam-engine ; 
but there was a considerable demand for pumping-engines 
of Newcomen's construction, many of which were made 
at the Coalbrookdale Works. The increasing demand for 
iron gave an impetus to coal-mining, which, in its turn, 
stimulated inventors in their improvement of the power 
of the steam-engine ; for the coal could not be worked 
quickly and advantageously unless the pits could be kept 
clear of water. Thus one invention stimulates another ; 
and when the steam-engine had been perfected by Watt, 
and enabled powerful-blowing apparatus to be worked by 
its agency, we shall find that the production of iron by 
means of pit-coal being rendered cheap and expeditious, 
soon became enormously increased. 

We are informed that it was while Richard Reynolds 
had charge of the Coalbrookdale works that a further 
important improvement was effected in the manufacture 
of iron by pit-coal. Up to this time the conversion of 
crude or cast-iron into malleable or bar-iron had been 
effected entirely by means of charcoal. The process was 
carried on in a fire called a finery, somewhat like that of 
a smith's forge ; the iron being exposed to the blast of 
powerful beUows, and in constant contact with the fuel. 
In the first process of fusing the iron-stone, coal had been 
used for some time with increasing success ; but the ques- 
tion arose, whether coal might not also be used with effect 
in the second or refining stage. Two of the foremen, 
named Cranege, suggested to Mr. Reynolds that this 
might be performed in what is called a reverberatory 
furnace,* in which the iron should not mix with the coal, 

* Reverberatory, so called because the flame or current of heated 
gases from the fuel is caused to be reverberated or reflected down 
upon the substance under operation before passing into the chimney. 
It is curious that Eovenson, in his Treatise of Metallica of 1613, de- 



116 INDUSTRIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

but be heated solely by the flame. Mr. Eeynolds greatly 
doubted the feasibility of the operation, but he authorized 
the Craneges to make an experiment of their process, the 
result of which will be found described in the followiag 
extract of a letter fi-om Mr. Reynolds to Mr. Thomas 
Goldney of Bristol, dated " Coalbrookdale, 25th April, 
1766": — 

" . . . . I come now to what I think a matter of very 
great consequence. It is some time since Thos. Cranege, 
who works at Bridgenorth Forge, and his brother George 
of the Dale, spoke to me about a notion they had con- 
ceived of making bar-iron without wood charcoal. I 
told them, consistent with the notion I had adopted in 
common with all others I had conversed with, that I 
thought it impossible, because the vegetable salts in the 
charcoal, being an alkali, acted as an absorbent to the 
sulphur of the iron, which occasions the red-short quality 
of the iron, and pit-coal abounding with sulphur would 
increase it. This specious answer, which would probably 
have appeared conclusive to most, and which, indeed, was 

scribes a reverberatory furnace in which iron was to be smelted by- 
pit-coal, though it does not appear that he succeeded in perfecting 
his invention. Dr. Percy, in his excellent work on Metallurgy, thus 
describes a reverberatory furnace: "It consists essentially of three 
parts, — a fireplace at one end, a stack or chimney at the other, and a 
bed between both, on which the matter is heated. The fireplace is 
separated from the bed by a low partition wall called the fire-bridge, 
and both are covered by an arched roof which ri^es from the end wall 
of the fireplace and gradually dips toward the furthest end of the 
bed connected with the stack. On one or both sides of the bed, or at 
the end near the stack, maj' be openings through which the ore spread 
over the surftice of the bed may be stin-ed about and exposed to the 
action of the air. The matter is heated in such a furnace by flame, 
and is kept from contact with the solid fuel. The flame in its course 
from the fireplace to the stack is reflected downwards or reverberated 
on the matter beneath, whence the name reverberatory furnace." 



THE COALBROOKDALE IRON-WORKS. 117 

what I really thought, was not so to them. They replied, 
that from the observations they had made, and repeated 
conversations together, they were both fii'mly of opinion 
that the alteration from the quality of pig-iron into that 
of bar-iron was affected merely by heat, and if I would 
give them leave, they would make a trial some day. I 
consented, but, I confess, without any great expectation 
of their success ; and so the matter rested some weeks, 
when it happening that some repairs had to be done at 
Bridgenorth, Thomas came up to the Dale, and, with his 
brother, made a trial in Thos. Tilly's air-furnace with 
such success as I thought would justify the erection of a 
small air-furnace at the Forge for the more perfectly as- 
certaining the merit of the invention. This was accord- 
ingly done, and a trial of it has been made this week, 
and the success has surpassed the most sanguine expecta- 
tions. The iron put into the furnace was old Bushes, 
which thou knowest are always made of hard iron, and 
the iron drawn out is the toughest I ever saw. A bar 1;|- 
inch square, when broke, appears to have very little cold- 
short in it. I look upon it as one of the most important 
discoveries ever made, and take the liberty of recom- 
mending thee and earnestly requesting thou wouldst 
take out a patent for it immediately The specifica- 
tion of the invention will be comprised in a few words, as 
it will only set forth that a reverberatory furnace being 
built of a proper construction, the pig or cast-iron is put 
into it, and without the addition of anything else than 
common raw pit-coal, is converted into good malleable 
iron, and, being taken red-hot from the reverberatory fur- 
nace to the forge-hammer, is drawn out into bars of vari- 
ous shapes and sizes, according to the will of the work- 
men." 



118 INDUSTRIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

Mr. Reynolds's advice was implicitly followed. A patent 
was secured in the name of the brothers Cranege, dated 
the 17th of June, 1766 ; and the identical words in the 
above letter were adopted in the specification as descrip- 
tive of the process. By this method of puddling, as it is 
termed, the manufacturer was thenceforward enabled to 
produce iron in increased quantity at a large reduction in 
price ; and though the invention of the Craneges was 
greatly improved upon by Onions, and subsequently by 
Cort, there can be no doubt as to the originahty and the 
importance of their invention. Mr. Tylor states that he 
was informed by the son of Richard Reynolds that the 
wrought-iron made at Coalbrookdale by the Cranege pro- 
cess " was very good, quite tough, and broke with a long, 
bright, fibrous fracture : that made by Cort afterwards 
was quite diflPerent." * Though Mr. Reynolds's gener- 
osity to the Craneges is apparent in the course which he 
adopted in securing for them a patent for the invention in 
their own names, it does not appear to have proved of 
much advantage to them ; and they failed to rise above 
the rank which they occupied when their valuable dis- 
covery was patented. This, however, was no fault of 
Richard Reynolds, but was mainly attributable to the 
circumstance of other inventions in a great measure 
superseding their process, and depriving them of the 
benefits of their ingenuity. 

Among the important improvements introduced by Mr. 

* Mr. Tylok on Metal Worlc, — Reports on the Paris Exhibition of 
1855, Part II. 182. We are informed by Mr. Reynolds of Coed-du, a 
grandson of Richard Reynolds, that " on further trials many difficulties 
arose. The bottoms of the furnaces were destroyed by the heat, and 
the quality of the iron varied. Still, by a letter dated May, 1767, it 
appears there had been sold of iron made in the new way to the value 
of 247Z. 14s. 6J." 



THE COALBROOKDALE IRON-WORKS. 119 

Reynolds while managing tlie Coalbrookdale Works, was 
the adoption by him, for the first time, of iron instead of 
wooden rails in the tram-roads along which coal and iron 
were conveyed from one part of the works to another, as 
well as to the loading-places along the river Severn. He 
observed that the wooden rails soon became decayed, be- 
sides being liable to be broken by the heavy loads pass- 
ing over them, occasioning much loss of time, interruption 
to business, and heavy expenses in repairs. It occurred 
to him that these inconveniences would be obviated by 
the use of rails of cast-iron ; and, having tried an experi- 
ment with them, it answered so well, that in 1767 the 
whole of the wooden rails were taken up and replaced by 
rails of iron. Thus was the era of iron railroads fairly 
initiated at Coalbrookdale, and the example of Mr. Rey- 
nolds was shortly after followed on all the tram-roads 
throughout the country. 

It is also worthy of note that the first iron bridge ever 
erected was cast and made at the Coalbrookdale Works, — 
its projection as well as its erection being mainly due to 
the skill and enterprise of Abraham Darby the third. 
When but a young man, he showed indications of that 
sagacity and energy in business which seemed to be 
hereditary in his family. One of the first things he did 
on arriving at man's estate was to set on foot a scheme 
for throwing a bridge across the Severn at Coalbrookdale, 
at a point where the banks were steep and slippery, to 
accommodate the large population which had sprung up 
along both banks of the river. There were now thriving 
iron, brick, and pottery works established in the parishes 
of Madeley and Broseley ; and the old ferry on the Sev- 
ern was found altogether inadequate for ready communi- 
cation between one bank and the other. The want of a 



120 INDUSTRIAL BIOGEAPHT. 

bridge had long been felt, and a plan of one bad been 
prepared during the lifetime of Abraham Darby the 
second; but the project was suspended at his death. 
When his son came of age, he resolved to take up his 
father's dropped scheme, and prosecute it to completion, 
which he did. Young Mr. Darby became lord of the 
manor of Madeley in 1776, and was the owner of one half 
of the ferry in right of his lordship. He was so fortu- 
nate as to find the owner of the other or Broseley half 
of the ferry equally anxious with himself to connect the 
two banks of the river by means of a bridge. The ne- 
cessary powers were accordingly obtained from Parlia- 
ment, and a bridge was authorized to be built " of cast- 
iron, stone, brick, or timber." A company was formed 
for the pui-pose of carrying out the project, and the shares 
were taken by the adjoining owners, Abraham Darby be- 
ing the principal subscriber.* 

* Among the other subscribers were the Eev. Mr. Harris, Mr. Jen- 
nings, and Mr. John Wilkinson, an active promoter of the scheme, who 
gave the company the benefit of his slcill and experience when it was 
determined to construct the bridge of iron. For an account of John 
Wilkinson, see Lives of the Engineers, Vol. II. 337, 356. In the descrip- 
tion of the first iron bridge given in that woi-k we have, it appears, 
attributed rather more credit to Mr. Wilkinson than he is entitled to. 
Mr. Darby was the most active promoter of the scheme, and had the 
principal sliare in the design. Wilkinson, nevertheless, was a man of 
great energy and originality. Besides being the builder of the first 
iron ship, he was the first to invent, for James Watt, a machine that 
would bore a tolerably true cylinder. He afterwards established iron- 
works in France, and Arthur Young says that " until that well-known 
English manufacturer an-ived, the French knew nothing of the art of 
casting cannon solid and then boring them." {Travels in France, 4to 
ed., London, 1792, p. 90.) Yet England had borrowed her first can- 
non-maker from France in the person of Peter Baude, as described in 
Chap. III. Wilkinson is also said to have invented a kind of hot-blast, 
in respect of which various witnesses gave evidence on the trial of 
Neilson's patent in 1839; but the invention does not appear to have 
been pei-fected by him. 



THE COALBROOKDALE IRON-WORKS. 121 

The construction of a bridge of iron was an entirely 
new idea. An attempt had indeed been made at Lyons, 
in France, to construct such a bridge more than twenty 
years before ; but it had entirely failed, and a bridge of 
timber was erected instead. It is not known whether the 
Coalbrookdale masters had heard of that attempt ; but, 
even if they had, it could have been of no practical use 
to them. Mr. Pritchard, an architect of Shrewsbury, 
was first employed to prepare a design of the intended 
structure, which is still preserved. Although IMr. Prit- 
chard proposed to introduce cast-iron in the arch of the 
bridge, which was to be of one hundred and twenty feet 
span, it was only as a sort of key, occupying but a few 
feet at the crown of the arch. This sparing use of cast- 
iron indicates the timidity of the architect in dealing with 
the new material, — his plan exhibiting a desire to eflFect 
a compromise between the tried and the untried in bridge- 
construction. But the use of iron to so limited an extent, 
and in such a part of the structure, was of more than 
questionable utility ; and if Mr. Pritchard's plan had been 
adopted, the problem of the iron bridge would still have 
remained unsolved. 

The plan, however, after having been duly considered, 
was eventually set aside, and another, with the entire arch 
of cast-iron, was prepared under the superintendence of 
Abraham Darby, by Mr. Thomas Gregory, his foreman 
of pattern-makers. Tliis plan was adopted, and arrange- 
ments were forthwith made for carrying it into effect. 
The abutments of the bridge were built in 1777- 8, during 
which the castings were made at the foundery, and the 
iron-work was successfully erected in the course of three 
months. The bridge was opened for traffic in 1779, and 
proved a most serviceable structure. In 1788 the Society 



122 INDUSTRIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

of Arts recognized Mr. Darby's merit as its designer and 
erector by presenting him with their gold medal ; and the 
model of the bridge is still to be seen in the collection of 
the Society. Mr. Robert Stephenson has said of the 
structure : " If we consider that the manipulation of cast- 
iron was then completely in its infancy, a bridge of such 
dimensions was doubtless a bold as well as an original 
undertaking, and the efficiency of the details is worthy of 
the boldness of the conception." * Mr. Stephenson adds, 
that from a defect in the construction the abutments were 
thrust inwards at the approaches and the ribs partially 
fractured. We are, however, infoi*med that this is a 
mistake, though it does appear that the apprehension at 
one time existed that such an accident might possibly 
occur. 

To remedy the supposed defect, two small land arches 
were, in the year 1800, substituted for the stone approach 
on the Broseley side of the bridge. While the work was 
in progress, Mr. Telford, the well-knoAvn engineer, care- 
fully examined the bridge, and thus spoke of its condition 
at the time : " The great improvement of erecting upon 
a navigable river a bridge of cast-iron of one arch only 
was first put in practice near Coalbrookdale. The bridge 
was executed in 1777, by Mr. Abraham Darby, and the 
iron-work is now quite as perfect as when it was first put 
up. Drawings of this bridge have long been before the 
public, and have been much and justly admired." f A 
Coalbrookdale correspondent, writing in May, 1862, in- 
forms us that " at the present time the bridge is under- 
going repair ; and, special examination having been 
made, there is no appearance either that the abutments 

* Encydopadia Britannica, 8th ed. Art. " Iron Bridges." 
t Plymley, General View of the Agriculture of Shropshire. 



THE COALBEOOKDALE IRON-WORKS. 123 

have moved, or that the ribs have been broken in the 
centre or are out of their proper right line. There has, it 
is true, been a strain on the land arches, and on the road- 
way plates, which, however, the main arch has been able 
effectually to resist." 

The bridge has now been in profitable daily use for 
upwards of eighty years, and has during that time proved 
of the greatest convenience to the population of the dis- 
trict. So judicious was the selection of its site, and so 
great its utility, that a thriving town of the name of Iron- 
bridge has grown up around it upon what, at the time of 
its erection, was a nameless part of " the waste of the 
manor of Madeley." And it is probable that the bridge 
will last for centuries to come. Thus, also, was the use 
of iron as an important material in bridge-building fairly 
initiated at Coalbrookdale by Abraham Darby, as the use 
of iron rails was by Richard Reynolds. We need scarcely 
add, that since the invention and extensive adoption of 
railway locomotion, the employment of iron in various 
forms in railway and bridge structures has rapidly in- 
creased, until iron has come to be regarded as the very 
sheet-anchor of the railway engineer. 

In the mean time the works at Coalbrookdale had be- 
come largely extended. In 1784, when the government 
of the day proposed to levy a tax on pit-coal, Richard 
Reynolds strongly ua-ged upon Mr. Pitt, then Chancellor 
of the Exchequer, as well as on Lord Gower, afterwards 
Marquis of Stafford, the impolicy of such a tax. To the 
latter he represented that large capitals had been invested 
in the iron trade, which was with difficulty carried on in 
the face of the competition with Swedish and Russian 
iron. At Coalbrookdale, sixteen " fire-engines," as steam- 
engines were first called, were then at work, eight blast- 



124 INDUSTRIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

furnaces and nine forges, besides the air-furnaces and 
mills at the foundery, which, with the levels, roads, and 
more than twenty miles of iron railways, gave employ- 
ment to a very large number of people. " The advance- 
ment of the iron trade within these few years," said he, 
" has been prodigious. It was thought, and justly, that 
the making of pig-iron with pit-coal was a great acquisi- 
tion to the country by saving the wood and supplying a 
material to manufactures, the production of which, by the 
consumption of all the wood the country produced, was 
formerly unequal to the demand, and the nail trade, per- 
haps the most considerable of any one article of manufac- 
tured iron, would have been lost to this country had it 
not been found practicable to make naUs of iron made 
with pit-coal. We have now another process to attempt, 
and that is to make bar-iron with pit-coal ; and it is for 
that purpose we have made, or rather are making, altera- 
tions at Donnington Wood, Ketley, and elsewhere, which 
we expect to complete in the present year, but not at a 
less expense than twenty thousand pounds, which will be 
lost to us, and gained by nobody, if this tax is laid upon 
our coals." He would not, however, have it understood 
that he sought for any protection for the home-made iron, 
notwithstanding the lower prices of the foreign article. 
" From its most imperfect state as pig-iron," he observed 
to Lord Sheffield, " to its highest finish in the regulating 
springs of a watch, we have nothing to fear if the impor- 
tation into each country should be permitted without 
duty." We need scarcely add, that the subsequent his- 
tory of the iron trade abundantly justified these sagacious 
anticipations of Richard Reynolds. 

He was now far advanced in years. His business had 
prospered, his means were ample, and he sought retire- 



THE COALBROOKDALE IRON-WORKS. 125 

ment. He did not desire to possess great wealth, which 
in his opinion entailed such serious responsibilities upon 
its possessor ; and he held that the accumulation of large 
property was more to be deprecated than desired. He 
therefore determined to give up his shares in the iron- 
works at Ketley to his sons William and Joseph, who 
continued to carry them on. William was a man of 
eminent ability, well versed in science, and an excellent 
mechanic. He introduced great improvements in the 
working of the coal and iron mines, employing new ma- 
chinery for the purpose, and availing himself with much 
ingenuity of the discoveries then being made in the 
science of chemistry. He was also an inventor, having 
been the first to employ (in 1788) inclined planes, con- 
sisting of parallel railways, to connect and work canals of 
different levels, — an invention erroneously attributed to 
Fulton, but which the latter himself acknowledged to 
belong to William Reynolds. In the first chapter of his 
" Treatise on Canal Navigation," published in 1796, 
Fulton says : " As local prejudices opposed the Duke 
of Bridgewater's canal in the first instance, prejudices 
equally strong as firmly adhered to the principle on which 
it was constructed ; and it was thought impossible to lead 
one through a country, or to work it to any advantage, 
tinless by locks and boats of at least twenty-five tons, till 
the genius of Mr. William Reynolds, of Ketley, in Shrop- 
shire, stepped from the accustomed path, constructed the 
first inclined plane, and introduced boats of five tons. 
This, like the Duke's canal, was deemed a visionary 
project, and particularly by his Grace, who was partial 
to locks ; yet this is also introduced into practice, and 
will, in many instances, supersede lock canals." Telford, 
the engineer, also gracefully acknowledged the valuable 



12'6 INDUSTRIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

assistance he received from "William Reynolds in plan- 
ning the iron aqueduct, bj means of which the EUesmere 
Canal was carried over the Pont Cysylltau, and in exe- 
cuting the necessary castings for the purpose at the 
Ketley foundery. 

The future management of his extensive iron-works 
being thus placed in able hands, Richard Reynolds finally 
left Coalbrookdale in 1804, for Bristol, his native town, 
where he spent the remainder of his life in works of 
charity and mercy. Here we might leave the subject, 
but cannot refrain from adding a few concluding words 
as to the moral characteristics of this truly good man. 
Though habitually religious, he was neither demure nor 
morose, but cheerful, gay, and humorous. He took great 
interest in the pleasures of the young people about him, 
and exerted himself in all ways to promote their happi- 
ness. He was fond of books, pictures, poetry, and music, 
though the indulgence of artistic tastes is not thought 
becoming in the Society to which he belonged. His love 
for the beauties of nature amounted almost to a passion, 
and when living at The Bank, near Ketley, it was his 
great delight in the summer evenings to retire with his 
pipe to a rural seat commanding a full view of the 
Wrekin, the Ercall Woods, with Cader Idris and the 
Montgomeryshire hills in the distance, and watch the 
sun go down in the west in his glory. Once in every 
yeai' he assembled a large party to spend a day with him 
on the Wrekin, and amongst those invited were the prin- 
cipal clerks in the company's employment, together with 
their families. At Madeley, near Coalbrookdale, where 
he bought a property, he laid out, for the express use of 
the workmen, extensive walks through the woods on Lin- 
coln Hill, commanding beautiful views. They were called 



THE COALBROOKDALE IRON-WORKS. 127 

"The "Workmen's "Walks," and were a source of great 
enjoyment to them and their families, especially on Sun- 
day afternoons. 

When Mr. Reynolds went to London on business, he 
was accustomed to make a round of visits, on his way 
home, to places remarkable for their picturesque beauty,"" 
such as Stowe, Hagley Park, and the Leasowes. After a 
"dsit to the latter place, in 1767, he thus, in a letter to his 
friend John Maccappen, vindicated his love for the beau- 
tiful in nature : " I think it not only lawful but expedient 
to cultivate a disposition to be pleased with the beauties 
of nature, by frequent indulgences for that purpose. The 
mind, by being continually applied to the consideration 
of ways and means to gain money, contracts an indiffer- 
ency if not an insensibility to the profusion of beauties 
which the benevolent Creator has impressed upon every 
part of the material creation. A sordid love of gold, the 
possession of what gold can purchase, and the reputation 
of being rich, have so depraved the finer feelings of some 
men, that they pass through the most delightful grove, 
filled with the melody of nature, or listen to the murmur- 
ings of the brook in the valley, with as little pleasure 
and with no more of the vernal delight which Milton 
describes, than they feel in passing through some obscure 
alley in a, town." 

"When in the prime of life, Mr. Reynolds was an ex- 
cellent rider, performing all his journeys on horseback. 
He used to give a ludicrous account of a race he once 
ran with another youth, each having a lady seated on a 
pillion behind him ; Mr. Reynolds reached the goal first, 
but when Jie looked round he found that he had lost his 
fair companion, who had fallen off in the race ! On 
another occasion he had a hard run with Lord Thurlow 



128 INDUSTRIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

during a visit paid by the latter to the Ketley Iron- 
Works. Lord Thurlow pulled up his horse first, and 
observed, laughing, " I think, Mr. Reynolds, this is prob- 
ably the first time that ever a Lord Chancellor rode a 
race with a Quaker ! " But a stranger rencontre was 
one which befell Mr. Reynolds on Blackheath. Though 
he declined government orders for cannon, he seems to 
have had a secret hankering after the " pomp and circum- 
stance" of military life. At all events he was present 
on Blackheath one day when George III. was reviewing 
some troops. Mr. Reynolds's horse, an old trooper, no 
sooner heard the sound of the trumpet than he started 
off at full speed, and made directly for the group of offi- 
cers before whom the troops were defiling. Great was 
the surprise of the King when he saw the Quaker draw 
up alongside of him, but still greater, perhaps, was the con- 
fusion of the Quaker at finding himself in such company. 
During the later years of his life, while living at Bris- 
tol, his hand was in every good work ; and it was often 
felt where it was not seen. For he carefully avoided 
ostentation, and preferred doing his good in secret. He 
strongly disapproved of making charitable bequests by 
will, which he observed in many cases to have been the 
foundation of enormous abuses, but held it to be the duty 
of each man to do all the possible good that he could 
during his lifetime. Many were the instances of his 
princely, though at the time unknown, munificence. Un- 
willing to be recognized as the giver of large sums, he 
employed agents to dispense his anonymous benefactions. 
He thus sent 20,000/. to London to be distributed during 
the distress of 1795. He had four almoners constantly 
employed in Bristol, finding out cases of distress, relieving 
them, and presenting their accounts to him weekly, with 



THE COALBROOKDALE IRON-WORKS. 129 

details of tlie cases relieved. He searched the debtors' 
prisons, and where, as often happened, deserving but 
unfortunate men were found confined for debt, he paid 
the claims against them and procured their release. Such 
a man could not fail to be followed with blessings and 
gratitude ; but these he sought to direct to the Giver of 
all Good. " My talent," said he to a friend, " is the 
meanest of all talents, — a little sordid dust ; but as the 
man in the parable who had but one talent was held 
.accountable, I also am accountable for the talent that I 
possess, humble as it is, to the great Lord of all." On 
one occasion the case of a poor orphan boy was submitted 
to him, whose parents, both dying young, had left him 
destitute, on which Mr. Reynolds generously offered to 
place a sum in the names of trustees for his education 
and maintenance until he could be apprenticed to a busi- 
ness. The lady who represented the case was so over- 
powered by the munificence of the act that she burst into 
tears, and, struggling to express her gratitude, concluded 
with, " and when the dear child is old enough, I will 
teach him to thank his benefactor." "Thou must teach 
him to look higher," interrupted Reynolds. " Do we 
thank the clouds for rain ? When the child grows up, 
teach him to thank Him who sendeth both the clouds and 
the rain." Reynolds himself deplored his infirmity of 
temper, which was by nature hasty ; and, as his benevo- 
lence was known, and appeals were made to him at all 
times, seasonable and unseasonable, he sometimes met 
them with a sharp word, which, however, he had scarcely 
uttered before he repented of it; and he is known to 
have followed a poor woman to her home and ask for- 
giveness for having spoken hastily in answer to her appli- 
cation for help. 



130 INDUSTRIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

This " great good man" died on tlie lOth of September, 
1816, in the 81st year of his age. At his funeral the 
poor of Bristol were the chief mourners. The children 
of the benevolent societies which he had munificently 
supported during his Kfetime, and some of which he had 
founded, followed his body to the grave. The procession 
was joined by the clergy and ministers of all denomina- 
tions, and by men of all classes and persuasions. And 
thus was Richard Reynolds laid to his rest, leaving be- 
hind him a name full of good odor, which will long be 
held in grateful remembrance by the inhabitants of 
Bristol. 



CHAPTER VI. 

LsrvENTiON OF Cast-Steel. — Benjamin Huntsman. 

" It may be averred that as certainly as the age of iron superseded that of 
bronze, so will the age of steel reign triumphant over iron." — Henkt Bessemer. 

" Aujourd'hui la revolution que devait amener en Grande-Bretagne la memo- 
rable decouverte de Benjamin Huntsman est tout k fait accomplie, et chaque jour 
les consequences s'en feront plus vivement sentir sur le continent." — Le Play, 
Sur la Fabrication de VAcier en Yorkshire. 

Ikon, besides being used in various forms as bar and 
cast-iron, is also used in various forms as bar and cast- 
steel ; and it is principally because of its many admirable 
qualities in these latter forms that iron maintains its 
supremacy over all the other metals. 

The process of converting iron into steel had long been 
known among the Eastern nations before it was intro- 
duced into Europe. The Hindoos were especially skilled 
in the art of making steel, as indeed they are to this day ; 
and it is supposed that the tools with which the Egyp- 
tians covered their obelisks and temples of porphyry and 
syenite with hieroglyphics were made of Indian steel, as 
probably no other metal was capable of executing such 
work. The art seems to have been weU known in Ger- 
many in the Middle Ages, and the process is on the 
whole very faithfully described by Agricola in his great 
work on Metallurgy.* England then produced very little 
steel, and was naainly dependent for its supply of the 
article upon the continental makers. 

* Agricola, De Re Metallica. Basle, 1621. 



132 INDUSTPJAL BIOGEAPHY. 

From an early period Sheffield became distinguished 
for its manufacture of iron and steel into various useful 
articles. We find it mentioned in the thirteenth century 
as a place where the best arrowheads were made, — the 
Earl of Richmond owing his success at the battle of 
Bosworth partly to their superior length, sharpness, and 
finish. The manufactures of the town became of a more 
pacific character in the following centuries, during which 
knives, tools, and implements of husbandry became the 
leading articles. 

Chancers reference to the " Sheffield thwytel " (or case- 
knife) in his Canterbury Tales, written about the end of 
the fourteenth century, shows that the place had then 
become known for its manufacture of knives. In 1575 
we find the Earl of Shrewsbury presenting to his friend 
Lord Burleigh "a case of Hallamshire whittells, being 
such fruites as his pore cuntrey affiardeth with fame 
throughout the realme." Fuller afterwards speaks of the 
Sheffield knives as " for common use of the country 
people," and he cites an instance of a knave who cozened 
him out of fourpence for one, when it was only worth 
a penny. 

In 1600 Sheffield became celebrated for its tobacco- 
boxes and Jew's-harps. The town was, as yet, of small 
size and population ; for when a survey of it was made 
in 1615 it was found to contain not more than 2,207 
householders, of whom one third, or 725, were " not able 
to live without the charity of their neighbors : these are 
all begging poor." * It must, however, have continued its 
manufacture of knives ; for we find that the knife with 
which Felton stabbed the Duke of Buckingham at Ports- 
mouth, in 1628, was traced to Sheffield. The knife was 

* The Eev. Joseph Hunter, History of Hallamshire. 



INVENTION OF CAST-STEEL. 133 

left sticking in the Duke's body ; and, when examined, 
was found to bear the Sheffield corporation mark. It 
was ultimately ascertained to have been made by one 
Wild, a cutler, who had sold the knife for tenpence to 
Felton when recruiting in the town. 

At a still later period, the manufacture of clasp or 
spring knives was introduced into Sheffield by Flemish 
workmen. Harrison says this trade was begun in 1650. 
The clasp-knife was commonly known in the North as a 
jocteleg. Hence Burns, describing the famous article 
treasured by Captain Grose the antiquarian, says that 

" It was a faulding jocteleg, 
Or lang-kail gully " ; 

the word being merely a corruption of Jacques de Liege, 
a famous foreign cutler, whose knives were as well 
known throughout Europe as those of Rogers or Mappin 
are now. Scythes and sickles formed other branches of 
manufacture introduced by the Flemish artisans, the 
makers of the former principally living in the parish of 
Norton, those of the latter in Eckington. 

Many improvements were introduced from time to 
time in the material of which these articles were made. 
Instead of importing the German steel, as it was called, 
the Sheffield manufacturers began to make it themselves, 
principally from Dannemora iron imported from Sweden. 
The first English manufacturer of the article was one 
Crowley, a Newcastle man; and the Sheffield makers 
shortly followed his example. We may here briefly state 
that the ordinary method of preparing this valuable 
material of manufactures is by exposing iron bars, placed 
in contact with roughly-granulated charcoal, to an intense 
heat, — the process lasting for about a week, more or 
less, according to the degree of carbonization required. 



134 INDUSTEIAL BIOGEAPHY. 

By this means, what is called hlistered-steel is produced, 
and it furnishes the material out of which razors, files, 
knives, swords, and various articles of hardware are 
manufactured. A further process is the manufacture of 
the metal thus treated iato shear-steel, by exposing a 
fasciculus of the blistered-steel rods, with sand scattered 
over them for the purposes of a flux, to the heat of a 
wind-furnace until the whole mass becomes of a weld- 
ing heat, when it is taken from the fire and drawn out 
under a forge-hammer, — the process of welding being 
repeated, after which the steel is reduced to the required 
sizes. The article called fagot-steel is made after a 
somewhat similar process. 

But the most valuable form in which steel is now used 
in the manufactures of Sheffield is that of cast-steel, in 
which iron is presented in perhaps its very highest state 
of perfection. Cast-steel consists of iron united to car- 
bon in an elastic state, together with a small portion of 
oxygen ; whereas crude or pig-iron consists of iron com- 
bined with carbon in a material state.* The chief merits 
of cast-steel consist in its possessing great cohesion and 
closeness of grain, with an astonishing degree of tenacity 
and flexibility, — quahties which render it of the highest 
value in all kinds of tools and instruments where dura- 
bility, polish, and fineness of edge are essential requisites. 
It is to this material that we are mainly indebted for the 
exquisite cutting instrument of the surgeon, the chisel of 
the sculptor, the steel plate on which the engraver prac- 
tises liis art, the cutting tools employed in the various 
processes of skilled handicraft, down to the common saw 
or the axe used by the backwoodsman in levelling the 
primeval forest. 

* MusHET, Papers on Iron and Steel. 



BENJAMIN HUNTSMAN. 135 

The invention of cast-steel is due to Benjamin Hunts- 
man, of Attercliffe, near Sheffield. M. Le Play, Pro- 
fessor of Metallurgy in the Royal School of Mines of 
France, after making careful inquiry and weighing all 
the evidence on the subject, arrived at the conclusion 
that the invention fairly belongs to Huntsman. The 
French professor speaks of it as a " memorable discov- 
ery," made and applied with admirable perseverance ; 
and he claims for its inventor the distinguished merit of 
advancing the steel manufactures of Yorkshire to the 
first rank, and powerfully contributing to the establish- 
ment on a firm foundation of the industrial and commer- 
cial supremacy of Great Britain. It is remarkable that 
a French writer should have been among the first to 
direct public attention to the merits of this inventor, and 
to have first published the few facts known as to his his- 
tory in a French government report, — showing the neg- 
lect which men of this class have heretofore received at 
home, and the much greater esteem in which they are 
held by scientific foreigners.* Le Play, in his enthusi- 
astic admiration of the discoverer of so potent a metal as 
cast-steel, paid a visit to Huntsman's grave iu Attercliffe 
Churchyard, near Sheffield, and from the inscription on 
his tombstone recites the facts of his birth, his death, and 
his brief history. With the assistance of his descendants, 
we are now enabled to add the following record of the 
life and labors of this remarkable but almost forgotten 
man. 

* M. Le Play's two elaborate and admirable reports on the manu- 
facture of steel, published in the Annales des Mines, Vols. III. and IX., 
4th series, a,re unique of their kind, and have as yet no counterpart in 
English literature. They are respectively entitled, " Mdmoire snr la 
Fabrication de 1' Acier en Yorkshire," and " Memoire sur le Fabrica- 
tion et le Commerce des Fers a Acier dans le Nord de I'Europe." 



136 INDUSTRIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

Benjamin Huntsman was born in Lincolnshire in the 
year 1704. His parents were of German extraction, and 
had settled in this country only a few years previous to 
his birth. The boy being of an ingenious turn, was bred 
to a mechanical calling ; and becoming celebrated for his 
expertness in repairing clocks, he eventually set up in 
business as a clock-maker and mender in the town of 
Doncaster. He also undertook various other kinds of 
metal work, such as the making and repairing of locks, 
smoke-jacks, roasting-jacks, and other articles requiring 
mechanical skill. He was remarkably shrewd, observant, 
thoughtful, and practical ; so much so, that he came to be 
regarded as the " wise man " of his neighborhood, and was 
not only consulted as to the repairs of machinery, but also 
of the human frame. He practised surgery with dex- 
terity, though after an empirical fashion, and was held 
in especial esteem as an oculist. His success was such 
that his advice was sought in many surgical diseases, and 
he was always ready to give it, but declined receiving 
any payment in return. 

In the exercise of his mechanical calling he introduced 
several improved tools, but was much hindered by the 
inferior quality of the metal supplied to him, which was 
common German steel. He also experienced considera- 
ble difficulty in finding a material suitable for the springs 
and pendulums of his clocks. These circumstances in- 
duced him to turn liis attention to the making of a better 
kind of steel than was then procurable, for the purposes 
of his trade. His first experiments were conducted at 
Doncaster ; * but as fuel was difficult to be had at that 

* There are several clocks stiU in existence in the neighborhood 
of Doncaster made by Benjamin Huntsman; and there is one in the 
possession of his grandson, with a pendulum made of cast-steel. The 



BENJAMIN HUNTSMAN. 137 

place, he determined, for greater convenience, to remove 
to the neighborhood of Sheffield, which he did in 1740. 
He first settled at Hansworth, a few miles to the south 
of that town, and there pursued his investigations in 
secret. Unfortunately, no records have been preserved 
of the methods which he adopted in overcoming the diffi- 
culties he had necessarily to encounter. That they must 
have been great is certain, for the process of manufactur- 
ing cast-steel of a first-rate quality even at this day is of 
a most elaborate and dehcate character, requiring to be 
carefully watched in its various stages. He had not only 
to discover the fuel and flux suitable for his purpose, but 
to build such a furnace and make such a crucible as 
should sustain a heat more intense than any then known 
in metallm-gy. Ingot-moulds had not yet been cast, nor 
were there hoops and wedges made that would hold them 
together; nor, in short, were any of those materials at 
his disposal which are now so familiar at every melting- 
furnace. 

Huntsman's experiments extended over many years 
before the desired result was achieved. Long after his 
death, the memorials of the numerous failures through 
which he toilsomely worked his way to success were 
brought to light in the shape of many hundred weights 
of steel, found buried in the earth, in different places, 
about his manufactory. From the number of these 
wrecks of early experiments, it is clear that he had 
worked continuously upon his grand idea of purifying 
the raw steel then in use, by melting it with fluxes at 
an intense heat in closed earthen crucibles. The buried 

manufacture of a pendulum of such a material at that early date is 
certainly curious; its still perfect spring and elasticity showing the 
scrupulous care with which it had been made. 



138 INDUSTEIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

masses were found in various stages of failure, arising 
from imperfect melting, breaking of crucibles, and bad 
fluxes, and had been hid away as so much spoiled steel 
of which nothing could be made. At last his persever- 
ance was rewarded, and his invention perfected ; and 
although a hundred years have passed since Huntsman's 
discovery, the description of fuel (coke) which he first 
applied for the purpose of melting the steel, and the cru- 
cibles and furnaces which he used, are, for the most part, 
similar to those in use at the present day. Although the 
making of cast-steel is conducted with greater economy 
and dexterity, owing to increased experience, it is ques- 
tionable whether any maker has since been able to sur- 
pass the quality of Huntsman's manufacture. 

The process of making cast-steel, as invented by Ben- 
jamin Huntsman, may be thus summarily described. 
The melting is conducted in clay pots or crucibles man- 
ufactured for the purpose, capable of holding about thirty- 
four pounds each. Ten or twelve of such crucibles are 
placed in a melting-furnace similar to that used by brass- 
founders ; and when the furnace and pots are at a white 
heat, to which they are raised by a coke fii-e, they are 
charged with bar-steel reduced to a certain degree of 
hardness, and broken into pieces of about a pound each. 
"When the pots are all thus charged with steel, lids are 
placed over them, the furnace is filled with coke, and the 
cover put down. Under the intense heat to which the 
metal is exposed, it undergoes an apparent ebullition. 
When the furnace requires feeding, the workmen take 
the opportunity of lifting the lid of each crucible and 
judging how far the process has advanced. After about 
three hours' exposure to the heat, the metal is ready for 
"teeming." The completion of the melting process is 



BENJAMIN HUNTSMAN. 139 

known by the subsidence of all ebullition, and by the 
clear surface of the melted metal, which is of a dazzling 
brilliancy, like the sun when looked at with the naked 
eye on a clear day. The pots are then lifted out of their 
place, and the liquid steel is poured into ingots of the 
shape and size required. The pots are replaced, filled 
again, and the process is repeated ; the red-hot pots thus 
serving for three successive charges, after which they are 
rejected as useless. 

"When Huntsman had perfected his invention, it would 
naturally occur to him that the new metal might be em- 
ployed for other purposes besides clock-springs and pen- 
dulums. The business of clock-making was then of a 
very limited character, and it could scarcely have been 
worth his while to pursue so extensive and costly a series 
of experiments merely to supply the requirements of that 
trade. It is more probable that at an early stage of his 
investigations he shrewdly foresaw the extensive uses to 
which cast-steel might be applied in the manufacture of 
tools and cutlery of a superior kind ; and we accordingly 
find him early endeavoring to persuade the manufacturers 
of Sheffield to employ it in the manufacture of knives and 
razors. But the cutlers obstinately refused to work a 
material so much harder than that which they had been 
accustomed to use ; and for a time he gave up all hopes 
of creating a demand in that quarter. Foiled in his en- 
deavors to sell his steel at home, Huntsman turned his 
attention to foreign markets ; and he soon foimd he could 
readily sell abroad all that he could make. The merit 
of employing cast-steel for general purposes belongs to 
the French, always so quick to appreciate the advantages 
of any new discovery, and for a time the whole of the 
cast-steel that Huntsman could manufacture was exported 
to France. 



140 INDUSTRIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

"When he had fairly estabhshed his business with that 
country, the Sheffield cutlers became alarmed at the repu- 
tation wliich cast-steel was acquiring abroad ; and when 
they heard of the preference displayed by English as 
well as French consumers for the cutlery manufactured 
of that metal, they readily apprehended the serious con- 
sequences that must necessarily result to their own trade 
if cast-steel came into general use. They then appointed 
a deputation to wait upon Sir George Savile, one of the 
members for the County of York, and requested him to 
use his influence with the government to obtain an order 
to prohibit the exportation of cast-steel. But on learn- 
ing from the deputation that the Sheffield manufacturers 
themselves would not make use of the new steel, he posi- 
tively declined to comply with their request. It was 
indeed fortunate for the interests of the town that the 
object of the deputation was defeated, for at that time 
Mr, Huntsman had very pressing and favorable oflFers 
from some spirited manufacturers in Birmingham to 
remove his furnaces to that place ; and it is extremely 
probable that, had the business of cast-steel making be- 
come established there, one of the most important and 
lucrative branches of its trade would have been lost to 
the town of Sheffield. 

The Sheffield makers were therefore under the neces- 
sity of using the cast-steel, if they would retain their 
trade in cutlery against France ; and Huntsman's home 
trade rapidly increased. And then began the efforts of 
the Sheffield men to wrest his secret from him ; for 
Huntsman had not taken out any patent for his inven- 
tion, his only protection being in preserving liis process 
as much a mystery as possible. All the workmen em- 
ployed by him were pledged to inviolable secrecy ; stran- 



BENJAMIN HUNTSMAN. 141 

gers were carefully excluded from tlie works ; and the 
whole of the steel made was melted during the night. 
There were many speculations abroad as to Huntsman's 
process. It was generally believed that his secret con- 
sisted in the flux which he employed to make the metal 
melt more readily ; and it leaked out amongst the work- 
men that he used broken bottles for the purpose. Some 
of the manufacturers, who by prying and bribing got an 
inkling of the process, followed Huntsman implicitly in 
this respect ; and they would not allow their own work- 
men to flux the pots, lest they also should obtain posses- 
sion of the secret. But it turned out eventually that no 
such flux was necessary, and the practice has long since 
been discontinued. A Frenchman named Jars, frequently 
quoted by Le Play in his account of the manufacture of 
steel in Yorkshire,* paid a visit to SheflBeld towards the 
end of last century, and described the process so far as 
he was permitted to examine it. According to his state- 
ment, all kinds of fragments of broken steel were used ; 
but this is corrected by Le Play, who states that only the 
best bar-steel, manufactured of Dannemora iron, was em- 
ployed. Jars adds that " the steel is put into the crucible 
with a jiux, the composition of which is kept secret " ; 
and he states that the time then occupied in the conver- 
sion was five hours. 

It is said that the person who first succeeded in 
copying Huntsman's process was an iron-founder named 
Walker, who carried on his business at Greenside, near 
Shefiield ; and it was certainly there that the making of 
cast-steel was next begun. Walker adopted the " ruse " 
of disguising himself as a tramp, and, feigning great dis- 
tress and abject poverty, he appeared, shivering, at the 

* Annates des Mines, Vols. III. and IX., 4th Series. 



142 INDUSTRIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

door of Huntsman's foundery late one night when the 
workmen were about to begin their labors at steel-casting, 
and asked for admission to warm himself by the furnace 
fire. The workmen's hearts were moved, and they per- 
mitted him to enter. We have the above facts from the 
descendants of the Huntsman family; but we add the 
ti-aditional story preserved in the neighborhood, as given 
in a well-known book on metallurgy : — 

" One cold winter's night, while the snow was falling 
in heavy flakes, and the manufactory threw its red glare 
of light over the neighborhood, a person of the most 
abject appearance presented himself at the entrance, 
praying for permission to share the warmth and shelter 
which it afforded. The humane workmen found the 
appeal irresistible, and the apparent beggar was per- 
mitted to take up his quarters in a warm corner of the 
building. A careful scrutiny would have discovered lit- 
tle real sleep in the drowsiness which seemed to overtake 
the stranger ; for he eagerly watched every movement 
of the workmen while they went through the operations 
of the newly discovered process. He observed, first of 
all, that bars of blistered steel were broken into small 
pieces, two or three inches in length, and placed in cru- 
cibles of fire clay. When nearly full, a little green glass 
broken into small fragments was spread over the top, 
and the whole covered over with a closely fitting cover. 
The crucibles were then placed in a furnace previously 
prepared for them ; and after a lapse of from three to 
four hours, during which the crucibles were examined 
from time to time to see that the metal was thoroughly 
melted and incorporated, the workmen proceeded to lift 
the crucible from its place on the furnace by means of 
tongs, and its molten contents, blazing, sparkling, and 



BENJAMIN HUNTSMAN. 143 

spurting, were poured into a mould of cast-iron previ- 
ously prepared : here it was suffered to cool, while the 
crucibles were again filled, and the process repeated. 
When cool, the mould was unscrewed, and a bar of cast- 
steel presented itself, which only required the aid of the 
hammer-man to form a finished bar of cast-steel. How 
the unauthorized spectator of these operations effected 
his escape without detection tradition does not say; but 
it tells us that, before many months had passed, the 
Huntsman manufactory was not the only one where cast- 
steel was produced." * 

However the facts may be, the discovery of the elder 
Huntsman proved of the greatest advantage to Sheffield ; 
for there is scarcely a civilized country where Sheffield 
steel is not largely used, either in its most highly finished 
forms of cutlery or as the raw material for some home 
manufacture. In the mean time the demand for Hunts- 
man's steel steadily increased, and in 1770, for the pur- 
pose of obtaining greater scope for his operations, he 
removed to a large, new manufactory which he erected 
at Attercliffe, a little to the north of Sheffield, more 
conveniently situated for business purposes. There he 
continued to flourish for six years more, making steel 
and practising benevolence ; for, like the Darbys and 
Reynoldses of Coalbrookdale, he was a worthy and highly 
respected member of the Society of Friends. He was 
well versed in the science of his day, and skilled in 
chemistry, which doubtless proved of great advantage to 
him in pursuing his experiments in metallurgy.f That 

* The Useful Metals and {heir Alloys (p. 348), an excellent little 
work, in which the process of cast-steel making will be found fully- 
described. 

t We are informed that a mirror is still preserved at Attercliffe, 
made by Huntsman in the days of his early experiments. 



144 INDUSTRIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

he was possessed of great perseverance will be obvious 
from the difficulties he encountered and overcame in 
perfecting his valuable invention. He was, however, 
like many persons of strong original character, eccentric 
in his habits and reserved in his manner. The Eoyal 
Society wished to enroll him as a member, in acknowl- 
edgment of the high merit of his discovery of cast-steel, 
as well as because of his skill in practical chemistry ; but 
as this would have drawn him in some measure from his 
seclusion, and was also, as he imagined, opposed to the 
principles of the Society to which he belonged, he de- 
clined the honor. Mr. Huntsman died in 1776, in his 
seventy-second year, and was buried in the churchyard 
at Attercliffe, where a gravestone with an inscription 
marks his resting-place. 

His son continued to carry on the business, and largely 
extended its operations. The Huntsman mark became 
known throughout the civilized world. Le Play, the 
French Professor of Metallurgy, in his 3Iemoire of 1846, 
still speaks of the cast-steel bearing the mark of " Hunts- 
man and Marshall " as the best that is made ; and he 
adds, " The buyer of this article, who pays a higher 
price for it than for other sorts, is not acting merely 
in the blind spirit of routine, but pays a logical and well- 
deserved homage to all the material and moral qualities 
of which the true Huntsman mark has been the guaranty 
for a century." * 

Many other large firms now compete for their share of 
the trade ; and the extent to which it has grown, the 
number of furnaces constantly at work, and the quantity 
of steel cast into ingots, to be tilted or rolled for the vari- 
ous purposes to which it is applied, have rendered Shef- 

* Annates des Mines, Vol. IX., 4th Series, 266. 



INVENTION OF CAST-STEEL. 145 

field the greatest laboratory in the world of this valuable 
material. Of the total quantity of cast-steel manufac- 
tured ia England, not less than five sixths are produced 
there ; and the facilities for experiment and adaptation 
on the spot have enabled the Sheffield steel-makers to 
keep the lead in the manufacture, and surpass all others 
in the perfection to which they have carried this impor- 
tant branch of our national industry. It is indeed a 
remarkable fact that this very town, which was formerly 
indebted to Styria for the steel used in its manufactures, 
now exports a material of its own conversion to the Aus- 
trian forges and other places on the Continent from which 
it was before accustomed to draw its own supplies. 

Among the improved processes invented of late years 
for the manufacture of steel, are those of Heath, Mushet, 
and Bessemer. The last promises to effect before long 
an entire revolution in the iron and steel trade. By it 
the crude metal is converted by one simple process, 
directly as it comes from the blast-furnace. This is ef- 
fected by driving through it, whUe still in a molten state, 
several streams of atmospheric air, on which the carbon 
of the crude iron unites with the oxygen of the atmos- 
phere, the temperature is greatly raised, and a violent 
ebullition takes place, during which, if the process be 
continued, that part of the carbon which appears to be 
mechanically mixed and diffused through the crude iron 
is entirely consumed. The metal becomes thoroughly 
cleansed, the slag is ejected and removed, while the sul- 
phur and other volatile matters are driven off"; the result 
being an ingot of malleable iron of the quality of char- 
coal-iron. An important feature in the process is, that 
by stopping it at a particular stage, immediately following 
the boil, before the whole of the carbon has been ab- 



146 INDUSTEIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

stracted by the oxygen, the crude iron will be found to 
have passed into the condition of cast-steel of ordinary 
quality. By continuing the process, the metal losing its 
carbon, it passes from hard to soft steel, thence to steely 
iron, and last of all to very soft iron ; so that, by inter- 
rupting the process at any stage, or continuing it to the 
end, almost any quality of iron and steel may be obtained. 
One of the most valuable forms of the metal is described 
by Mr. Bessemer as " semi-steel," being in hardness about 
midway between ordinary cast-steel and soft malleable 
iron. The Bessemer processes are now in full operation 
in England as weU. as abroad, both for converting crude 
into malleable iron, and for producing steel; and the 
results are expected to prove of the greatest practical 
utility in all cases where iron and steel are extensively 
employed. 

Yet, like every other invention, this of Mr. Bessemer 
had long been dreamt of, if not really made. "We are in- 
formed in " Warner's Tour through the Northern Counties 
of England," published at Bath in 1801, that a Mr. Eeed 
of Whitehaven had succeeded at that early period in 
making steel direct from the ore ;- and Mr. Mushet 
clearly alludes to the process in his " Papers on Iron and 
Steel." Nevertheless, Mr. Bessemer is entitled to the 
merit of working out the idea, and bringing the process 
to perfection, by his great skill and indomitable perse- 
verance. 

In' the Heath process, carburet of manganese is em- 
ployed to aid the conversion of iron into steel, while it 
also confers on the metal the property of welding and 
working more soundly under the hammer, — a fact dis- 
covered by Mr. Heath while . residing in India. Mr. 
Mushet's process is of a similar character. Another in- 



INVENTION OF CAST-STEEL. 147 

ventor, Major Uchatius, an Austrian engineer, granulates 
crude iron wMe in a molten state by pouring it into 
water, and then subjecting it to the process of conversion. 
Some of the manufacturers still affect secrecy in their 
operations ; but as one of the Sanderson firm — famous 
for the excellence of their steel — remarked to a visitor 
when showing him over their works, " the great secret is 
to have the courage to be honest, — a spirit to purchase 
the best material, and the means • and disposition to do 
justice to it in the manufacture." 

It remains to be added, that much of the success of the 
Sheffield manufactures is attributable to the practical skill 
of the workmen, who have profited by the accumulated 
experience treasured up by their class through many 
generations. The results of the innumerable experi- 
ments conducted before their eyes have issued in a most 
valuable though unwritten code of practice, the details of 
which are known only to themselves. They are also a 
most laborious class ; and Le Play says of them, when 
alluding to the fact of a single workman superintending 
the operations of three steel-casting furnaces, — "I have 
found nowhere in Europe, except in England, workmen 
able for an entire day, without any interval of rest, to 
undergo such toUsome and exhausting labor as that per- 
formed by these Sheffield workmen." 



CHAPTER VII. 

The Inventions of Henry Cort. 

" I have always found it in mine own experience an easier matter to devise 
manie and profitable inventions, than to dispose of one of them to the good of the 
author himself." — Sm Hugh Platt, 1589. 

Henry Cort was born in 1740, at Lancaster, where 
his father carried on the trade of a builder and brick- 
maker. Nothing is known as to Henry's early history ; 
but he seems to have raised himself by his own efforts to 
a respectable position. In 1765 we find him established 
in Surrey Street, Strand, carrying on the business of a 
navy agent, in which he is said to have realized consider- 
able profits. It was while conducting this business that 
he became aware of the inferiority of British ii-on com- 
pared with that obtained from foreign countries. The 
English wrought-iron was considered so bad that it was 
prohibited from aU government supplies, while the cast- 
iron was considered of too brittle a nature to be suited for 
general use.* Indeed, the Russian government became so 
persuaded that the English nation could not carry on 
their manufactures without Russian iron, that in 1770 
they ordered the price to be raised from seventy and 
eighty copecs per pood to two hundred and two hundred 
and twenty copecs per pood.f 

Such being the case, Cort's attention became directed 

* Life, of Brunei, p. 60. 

t SCEivENOE, History of the, Iron Trade, 169. 



THE INVENTIONS OF HENRY CORT. 149 

to the subject in connection with, the supply of iron to the 
Navy, and he entered on a series of experiments with the 
object of improving the manufacture of English iron. 
What the particular experiments were, and by what steps 
he arrived at results of so much importance to the British 
iron trade, no one can now tell. All that is known is, 
that about the year 1775 he relinquished his business as 
a navy agent, and took a lease of certain premises at 
Fontley, near Fareham, at the northwestern corner of 
Portsmouth Harbor, where he erected a forge and an 
iron-mill. He was afterwards joined in partnership by 
Samuel Jellicoe (son of Adam Jellicoe, then Deputy- 
Paymaster of Seamen's Wages), which turned out, as 
wiU shortly appear, a most unfortunate connection for 
Cort. 

As in the case of other iaventions, Cort took up the 
manufacture of iron at the point to which his predecessors 
had brought it, carrying it still further, and improving 
upon their processes. We may here briefly recite the 
steps by which the manufacture of bar-iron by means of 
pit-coal had up to this time been advanced. In 1747, 
Mr. Ford succeeded at Coalbrookdale in smelting iron ore 
with pit-coal, after which it was refined in the usual way 
by means of coke and charcoal. In 1762, Dr. Roebuck 
(hereafter to be referred to) took out a patent for melting 
the cast or pig-iron in a hearth heated with pit-coal by 
the blast of bellows, and then working the iron until it 
was reduced to nature, or metalHzed, as it was termed ; 
after which it was exposed to the action of a hollow pit- 
coal fire urged by a blast, until it was reduced to a loop 
and drawn out into bar-iron under a common forge-ham- 
mer. Then the brothers Cranege, in 1766, adopted the 
reverberatory or air furnace, in which they placed the 



150 INDUSTRIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

pig or cast iron, and without blast or the addition of any- 
tliing more than common raw pit-coal, converted the same 
into good malleable iron, which being taken red hot from 
the reverberatory furnace to the forge-hammer, was 
drawn into bars according to the wiU of the workman. 
Peter Onions of Merthyr Tydvil, in 1783, carried the 
manufacture a stage further, as described by him in his 
patent of that year. Having charged his furnace (" bound 
with iron work and well annealed ") with pig or fused 
cast-iron from the smelting-furnace, it was closed up and 
the doors were luted with sand. The fire was urged by 
a blast admitted underneath, apparently for the purpose 
of keeping up the combustion of the fuel on the grate. 
Thus Onions' furnace was of the nature of a puddling 
furnace, the fire of which was urged by a blast. TJie fire 
was to be kept up until the njetal became less fluid, and 
" thickened into a kind of frwi, which the workman, by 
opening the door, must turn and stir with a bar or other 
iron instrument, and then close the aperture again, apply- 
ing the blast and fire until there was a ferment in the 
metal." The patent further describes that " as the work- 
man stirs the metal," the scoriae wiU separate, " and the 
particles of iron will adhere, which particles the workman 
must collect or gather into a mass or lump." This mass 
or lump was then to be raised to a white heat, and forged 
into malleable iron at the forge-hammer. 

Such was the stage of advance reached in the manufac- 
ture of bar-iron, when Henry Cort published his patents 
in 1783 and 1784. In dispensing with a blast, he had 
been anticipated by the Craneges, and in the process of 
puddling by Onions ; but he introduced so many im- 
provements of an original character, with which he com- 
bined the inventions of his predecessors, as to establish 



THE INVENTIONS OF HENRY CORT. 151 

quite a new era in the history of the iron manxifacture, 
and, in the course of a few years, to raise it to the liighest 
state of prosperity. As early as 1786, Lord Sheffield 
recognized the great national importance of Cort's im- 
provements in the following words : " If Mr. Cort's very 
ingenious and meritorious improvements in the art of 
making and working iron, the steam-engine of Boulton 
and Watt, and Lord Dundonald's discovery of making 
coke at half the present price, should all succeed, it is not 
asserting too much to say, that the result will be more 
advantageous to Great Britain than the possession of the 
thirteen colonies (of America) ; for it wUl give the com- 
plete command of the iron trade to this country, with its 
vast advantages to navigation." It is scarcely necessary 
here to point out how completely the anticipations of 
Lord Sheffield have been fulfilled, sanguiue though they 
might appear to be when uttered some seventy-six years 
ago. * 

We will endeavor as briefly as possible to point out 
the important character of Mr. Cort's improvements, as 
embodied in his two patents of 1783 and 1784. In the 
first he states that, after " great study, labor, and expense, 

* Although the iron manufacture had gradually been increasing 
since the middle of the century, it was as yet comparatively insignifi- 
cant in amount. Thus we find, firom a statement by W. Wilkinson, 
dated December 25, 1791, contained in the memorandum-book of Wil- 
liam Reynolds of Coalbrookdale, that the produce in England and 
Scotland was then estimated to be, — 

Coke Furnaces. Charcoal Fvimaces. 

In England, 73 producing 67,548 tons 20 producing 8500 tons. 

In Scotland, 12 " 12,480 " 2 " 1000 " 

85 " 80,028 " 22 " 9500 " 

At the same time the annual import of Oregrounds iron from Sweden 
amounted to about 20,000 tons, and of bars and slabs from Russia about 
50,000 tons, at an average cost of 35?. a ton! 



1-52 INDUSTRIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

in trying a variety of experiments, and making many dis- 
coveries, he had invented and brought to perfection a 
peculiar method and process of preparing, welding, and 
working various sorts of iron, and of reducing the same 
into uses by machinery : a furnace, and other apparatus, 
adapted and applied to the said process." He first de- 
scribes his method of making iron for " large uses," such 
as shanks, arms, rings, and palms of anchors, by the 
method of pUing and fagoting, since become generally 
practised, — by laying bars of iron of suitable lengths, 
forged on purpose, and tapering so as to be thinner at 
one end than the other, laid over one another in the man- 
ner of bricks in buildings, so that the ends should every- 
where overlay each other. The fagots so prepared, to 
the amount of half a ton more or less, were then to be put 
into a common air or balling furnace, and brought to a 
welding heat, which was accomplished by his method in a 
much shorter time than in any hollow fire ; and when 
the heat was perfect, the fagots were then brought under 
a forge-hammer of great size and weight, and welded into 
a soUd mass. Mr. Cort alleges in the specification that 
iron for " larger uses " thus finished, is in all respects 
possessed of the highest degree of perfection ; and that 
the fixe in the balling furnace is better suited, from its 
regularity and penetrating quality, to give the iron a per- 
fect welding heat throughout its whole mass, without 
fusing in any part, than any fire blown by a blast. 
Another process employed by Mr. Cort for the purpose 
of cleansing the iron and producing a metal of purer 
grain, was that of working the fagots by passing them 
through rollers. " By this simple process," said he, " all 
the earthy particles are pressed out, and the iron becomes 
at once free from dross, and what is usually called cinder, 



THE INVENTIONS OF HENRY CORT. 153 

and is compressed into a fibrous and tough state." The 
objection has indeed been taken to the process of passing 
the iron through rollers, that the cinder is not so eiSect- 
ually got rid of as by passing it under a tilt hammer, 
and that much of it is squeezed into the bar and remains 
there, interrupting its fibre and impairing its strength. 

It does not appear that there was any novelty in the 
use of rollers by Cort ; for in his first specification he 
speaks of them as already well known.* His great merit 
consisted in apprehending the value of certain pro- 
cesses, as tested by his own and others' experience, and 
combining and applying them in a more effective practical 
form than had ever been done before. This power of 
apprehending the best methods, and embodying the de- 
tails in one complete whole, marks the practical, clear- 
sighted man, and in certain cases amounts almost to a 
genius. The merit of combining the inventions of others 
in such forms as that they shall work to advantage, is as 
great in its way as that of the man who strikes out the 
inventions themselves, but who, for want of tact and expe- 
rience, cannot carry them into practical effect. 

It was the same with Cort's second patent, in which he 
described his method of manufacturing bar-iron from the 
ore or from cast-iron. All the several processes therein 
described had been practised before his time ; his merit 
chiefiy consisting in the skilful manner in which he com- 
bined and apphed them. Thus, like the Craneges, he 

* "It is material to observe," says Mr. Webster, "that Cort, in this 
specification, speaks of the rollers, furnaces, and separate processes, as 
■weU known. There is no claim to any of them separately; the claim 
is to the reducing of the fagots of piled iron into bars, and the welding 
of such bars by rollers instead of by forge-hammers." — Memoir of 
Henry Cort, in Mechanic's Magazine, 16 July, 1859, by Thomas Web- 
ster, M.A., F.R.S. 

7* 



154 INDUSTRIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

employed the reverberatory or air furnace, without blast, 
and, like Onions, lie worked the fused metal with iron 
bars until it was brought into lumps, when it was removed 
and forged into malleable iron. Cort, however, carried 
the process further, and made it more effectual in aU 
respects. His method may be thus briefly described : 
the bottom of the reverberatory furnace was hoUow, so 
as to contain the fluid metal, introduced into it by ladles ; 
the heat being kept up by pit-coal or other fuel. Wten 
the furnace was charged, the doors were closed tmtil the 
metal was sufficiently fused, when the workman opened 
an aperture and worked or stirred about the metal with 
ii-on bars, when an ebullition took place, during the con- 
tinuance of which a bluish flame was emitted, the carbon 
of the cast-iron was burned off, the metal separated from 
the slag, and the iron, becoming reduced to nature, was 
then collected into lumps or loops of sizes suited to their 
intended uses, when they were drawn out of the doors 
of the furnace. They were then stamped into plates, 
and piled or worked in an air furnace, heated to a white 
or welding heat, shingled under a forge-hammer, and 
passed through the grooved rollers after the method 
described in the first patent. 

The processes described by Cort in his two patents 
have been followed by iron manufacturers, with various 
modifications, the results of enlarged experience, down to 
the present time. After the lapse of seventy-eight years, 
the language employed by Cort continues on the whole a 
faithful description of the processes still practised : the 
same methods of manufacturing bar from cast iron, and 
of puddling, piling, welding, and working the bar-iron 
tlirough grooved rollers, — all are nearly identical with 
the methods of manufacture perfected by Henry Cort in 



THE INVENTIONS OF HENEY CORT. 155 

1784. It may be mentioned that the development of the 
powers of the steam-engine by Watt had an extraordi- 
nary effect upon the production of iron. It created a 
largely increased demand for the ai-ticle for the purposes 
of the shafting and machinery which it was employed to 
drive ; while at the same .time it cleared pits of water 
which before were unworkable, and by being extensively 
applied to the blowing of iron-furnaces and the working 
of the rolling-mills, it thus gave a stUl further impetus to 
the manufacture of the metal. It would be beside our 
purpose to enter into any statistical detail on the subject ; 
but it wiU be sufficient to state that the production of 
iron, which in the early part of last century amounted 
to little more than 12,000 tons, about the middle of the 
century to about 18,000 tons, and at the time of Cort's 
inventions to about 90,000 tons, was found, in 1820, to 
have increased to 400,000 tons ; and now the total quan- 
tity produced is upwards of four millions of tons of pig- 
iron every year, or more than the entire production of all 
other European countries. There is little reason to doubt 
that this extraordinary development of the iron manufac- 
ture has been in a great measure due to the inventions 
of Henry Cort. It is said that at the present time there 
are not fewer than 8,200 of Cort's furnaces in operation 
in Great Britain alone.* 

Practical men have regarded Cort's improvement of 
the process of rolling the iron as the most valuable of his 
inventions. A competent authority has spoken of Cort's 
grooved rollers as of " high philosophical interest, being 
scarcely less than the discovery of a new mechanical 
power, in reversing the action of the wedge, by the 
application of force to four surfaces, so as to elongate a 

* Letter by Mr. Truran in Mechanic's Magazine. 



156 INDUSTRIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

mass, instead of applying force to a mass to divide the 
four surfaces." One of the best authorities in the iron 
trade of last century, Mr. Alexander Raby of Llanelly, 
like many others, was at first entirely sceptical as to the 
value of Cort's invention ; but he had no sooner wit- 
nessed the process than with manly candor he avowed 
his entire conversion to his views. 

We now return to the history of the chief author of 
this great branch of national industry. As might natu- 
rally be expected, the principal ironmasters, when they 
heard of Cort's success, and the rapidity and economy 
with which he manufactured and forged bar-iron, visited 
his foundery for the purpose of examining his process, 
and, if found expedient, of employing it at their own 
works. Among the first to try it were Richard Crawshay 
of Cyfartha, Samuel Homfray of Penydarran (both in 
South Wales), and William Reynolds of Coalbrookdale. 
Richard Crawshay was then (in 1787) forging only ten 
tons of bar-iron weekly under the hammer ; and when 
he saw the superior processes invented by Cort, he read- 
ily entered into a contract with him to work under his 
patents at ten shillings a ton royalty. In 1812 a letter 
from Mr. Crawshay to the Secretary of Lord Sheffield 
was read to the House of Commons, descriptive of his 
method of working iron, in which he said : " I took it from 
a Mr. Cort, who had a little mill at Fontley in Hamp- 
shire : I have thus acquainted you with my method, by 
which I am now making more than ten thousand tons 
of bar-iron per annum." Samuel Homfray was equally 
prompt in adopting the new process. He not only ob- 
tained from Cort plans of the puddling-furnaces and pat- 
terns of the rolls, but borrowed Cort's workmen to instruct 
his own in the necessary operations ; and he soon found 



THE INVENTIONS OF HENRY COET. 157 

the method so superior to that invented by Onions that 
he entirely confined himself to manufacturing after Cort's 
patent. We also find Mr. Reynolds inviting Cort to con- 
duct a trial of his process at Ketley, though it does not 
appear that it was adopted by the firm at that time.* 

The quality of the iron manufactured by the new pro- 
cess was found satisfactory; and the Admiralty having, 
by the persons appointed by them to test it in 1787, pro- 
nounced it to be superior to the best Oregrounds iron, the 
use of the latter was thenceforward discontinued, and 
Cort's iron only was directed to be used for the anchors 
and other iron-work in the ships of the Royal Navy. 
The merits of the invention seem to have been generally 
conceded, and numerous contracts for licenses were en- 
tered into with Cort and his partner by the manufacturers 
of bar-iron throughout the country.f Cort himself made 
arrangements for carrying on the manufacture on a large 
scale, and with that object entered upon the possession of 

* In the memorandum-book of William Eeynolds appears the fol- 
lowing entry on the subject: — 

" Copy of a paper given to H. Cort, Esq. 

" W. Keynolds saw H. C. in a trial which he made at Ketley, Dec. 
17, 1784, produce from the same pig both cold short and tough iron by 
a variation of the process used in reducing them from the state of cast- 
iron to that of malleable or bar-iron ; and in point of yield his processes 
were quite equal to those at Pitchford, which did not exceed the pro- 
portion of 31 CAvt. to the ton of bars. The experiment was made by 
stamping and potting the blooms or loops made in his furnace, which 
then produced a cold short iron; but when thej' were immediately 
shingled and drawn, the iron was of a black tough." 

The Coalbrookdale ironmasters are said to have been deterred from 
adopting the process because of what was considered an excessive 
waste of the metal, — about twenty-five per cent., — though, with 
greater experience, this waste was very much diminished. 

t Mr. Webster, in the " Case of Henry Cort," published in the 
Mechcmc's Magazine (2 Dec. 1859), states that " licenses were taken 
at royalties estimated to yield 27,500Z. to the owners of the patents." 



158 INDUSTRIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

a wharf at Gosport, belonging to Adam Jellicoe, his part- 
ner's father, where he succeeded in obtaining considerable 
government orders for iron made after his patents. To 
all ordinary eyes the inventor now appeared to be on the 
high road to fortune ; but there was a fatal canker at the 
root of this seeming prosperity, and in a few years the 
fabric which he had so laboriously raised crumbled into 
ruins. 

On the death of Adam Jellicoe, the father of Cort's 
partner, in August, 1789,* defalcations were discovered 
in his public accounts to the extent of 39,676/., and his 
books and papers were immediately taken possession of 
by the government. On examination it was found that 
the debts due to Jellicoe amounted to 89,657/., included 
in which was a sum of not less than 54,853/. owing to 
him by the Cort partnership. In the public investigation 
which afterwards took place, it appeared that the capital 
possessed by Cort being insufl&cient to enable him to pur- 
sue his experiments, which were of a very expensive 
character, Adam Jellicoe had advanced money from time 
to time for the purpose, securing himself by a deed of 
agreement entitling him to one half the stock and profits 
of all his contracts ; and in further consideration of the 
capital advanced by Jellicoe beyond his equal share, Cort 
subsequently assigned to him all his patent rights as col- 
lateral security. As JeUicoe had the reputation of being 
a rich man, Cort had not the slightest suspicion of the 

* In the " Case of Henry Cort," by Mr. Webster, above referred to 
(Mechanic's Magazine, 2 Dec. 1859), it is stated that Adam Jellicoe 
" committed suicide under the pressure of dread of exposure," but 
this does not appear to be confirmed by the accounts in the newspa- 
pers of the day. He died at his private dwelling-house, No. 14 High- 
bury Place, Islington, on the 30th August, 1789, after a fortftight's 



THE INVENTIONS OF HENRY CORT. 159 

source from wHch he obtained the advances made by 
him to the firm, nor has any connivance whatever on the 
part of Cort been suggested. At the same time it must 
be admitted that the connection was not free from sus- 
picion, and, to say the least, it was a singularly unfortu- 
nate one. It was found that among the moneys advanced 
by Jellicoe to Cort there was a sum of 27,500/. intrusted 
to him for the payment of seamen's and officers' wages. 
How his embarrassments had tempted him to make use 
of the public funds for the purpose of carrying on his 
speculations appears from his own admissions. In a 
memorandum dated the 11th November, 1782, found in 
his strong box after his death, he set forth that he had 
always had much more than his proper balance in hand, 
until his engagement, about two years before, with Mr. 
Cort, "which by degrees has so reduced me, and em- 
ployed so much more of my money than I expected, that 
I have been obliged to turn most of my navy bills into 
cash, and at the same time, to my great concern, am very 
deficient in my balance. This gives me great uneasiness, 
nor shall I live or die in peace till the whole is restored." 
He had, however, made the first false step, after which 
the downhill career of dishonesty is rapid. His desperate 
attempts to set himself right, only involved him the 
deeper ; his conscious breach of trust caused him a degree 
of daily torment which he could not bear ; and the dis- 
covery of his defalcations, which was made only a few 
days before his death, doubtless hastened his end. 

The government acted with promptitude, as they were 
bound to do in such a case. The body of Jellicoe was 
worth nothing to them, but they could secure the prop- 
erty in which he had fraudulently invested the public 
moneys intrusted to him. With this object, the then 



160 INDUSTEIAL BIOGKAPHY. 

Paymaster of the Navy proceeded to make an affidavit 
in the Exchequer, that Henry Cort was indebted to His 
Majesty in the sum of 27,500Z. and upwards, in respect 
of moneys belonging to the public treasury, which " Adam 
Jellicoe had at different times lent and advanced to the 
said Henry Cort, from' whom the same now remains 
justly due and owing ; and the deponent saith he verily 
believes that the said Henry Cort is much decayed in 
his credit, and in very embarrassed circumstances ; and, 
therefore, the deponent verily believes that the aforesaid 
debt so due and owing to His Majesty is in great danger 
of being lost if some more speedy means be not taken for 
the recovery than by the ordinary process of the Court." 
Extraordinary measures were therefore adopted. The 
assignments of Cort's patents, which had been made to 
Jellicoe in consideration of his advances, were taken pos- 
session of; but Samuel Jellicoe, the son of the defaulter, 
singular to say, was put in possession of the properties at 
Fontley and Gosport, and continued to enjoy them, to 
Cort's exclusion, for a period of fourteen years. It does 
not, however, appear that any patent right was ever 
levied by the assignees, and the result of the proceeding 
was that the whole benefit of Cort's inventions was thus 
made over to the ironmasters and to the public. Had the 
estate been properly handled, and the patent rights due 
under the contracts made by the ironmasters with Cort 
been duly levied, there is little reason to doubt that the 
whole of the debt owing to the government would have 
been paid in the course of a few years. " When we con- 
sider," says Mr. Webster, "how very simple was the 
process of demanding of the contracting ironmasters the 
patent dues (which for the year 1789 amounted to 
15,000Z., in 1790 to 15,000^., and in 1791 to 25,000/.), 



THE INVENTIONS OF HENEY COET. 161 

and wMch demand miglit have been enforced by the 
same legal process used to ruin the inventor, it is not 
difficult to surmise the motive for abstaining." The case, 
however, was not so simple as Mr. Webster puts it ; for 
there was such a contingency as that of the ironmastei-s 
combining to dispute the patent right, and there is every 
reason to believe that they were prepared to adopt that 
course.* 

Although the Cort patents expired in 1796 and 1798 
respectively, they continued the subject of public discus- 
sion for some time after, more particularly in connection 

* This is confinned by the report of a House of Commons Commit- 
tee on the subject (Mr. Davies Gilbert chairman), in which they say; 
" Your committee have not been able to satisfy themselves that either 
of the two inventions, one for subjecting cast-iron" to an operation 
termed puddling during ifs conversion to malleable-iron, and the 
other for passing it through fluted or grooved rollers, were so novel 
in their principle or their application as fairly to entitle the petitioners 
[Mr. Cort's survivors] to a parliamentary reward." It is, however, 
stated by Mr. Mushet that the evidence was not fairly taken by the 
committee, — that they were overborne by the audacity of Mr. Samuel 
Homfray, one of the great Welch ironmasters, whose statements were 
altogether at variance with known facts, ^ and that it was under his 
influence that Mr. Gilbert drew up the fallacious report of the com- 
mittee. The illustrious James Watt, writing to Dr. Black in 1784, as 
to the iron produced by Cort's process, said: " Though I cannot per- 
fectly agree with you as to its goodness, yet there is much ingenuity 
in the idea of forming the bars in that manner, which is the only part 

of his process which has any pretensions to novelty Mr. Cort 

has, as you observe, been most illiberally treated by the trade : they 
are ignorant brutes ; but he exposed himself to it by showing them the 
process before it was perfect, and seeing his ignorance of the common 
operations of making iron, laughed at and despised him ; yet they wiU 
contrive by some dirty evasion to use his process, or such parts as 
they like, without acknowledging him in it. I shall be glad to be 
able to be of any use to him." Watt's feUow-feeling was naturally 
excited in favor of the plundered inventor, he himself having all his 
life been exposed to the attacks of like piratical assailants. 



162 INDUSTEIAL BIOGEAPHY. 

with the defalcations of the deceased Adam Jellicoe. It 
does not appear that more than 2,654?. was realized by 
the government from the Cort estate towards the loss 
sustained by the public, as a balance of 24,846?. was still 
found standing to the debit of Jellicoe in 1800, when the 
deficiencies in the naval accounts became matter of pub- 
lic inquiry. A few years later, in 1805, the subject was 
again revived in a remarkable manner. In that year, the 
Whigs, perceiving the bodily decay of Mr. Pitt, and be- 
ing too eager to wait for his removal by death, began 
their famous series of attacks upon his administration. 
Fearing to tackle the popular statesman himself, they 
inverted the ordinary tactics of an opposition, and fell 
foul of Dundas, Lord MelvUle, then Treasurer of the 
Navy, who had successfully carried the country through 
the great naval war with revolutionary France. They 
scrupled not to tax him with gross peculation, and 
exhibited articles of impeacliment against him, which 
became the subject of elaborate investigation, the result 
of which is matter of history. In those articles, no ref- 
erence whatever was made to Lord Melville's supposed 
complicity with Jelhcoe ; nor, on the trial that followed, 
was any reference made to the defalcations of that official. 
But when Mr. Whitbread, on the 8th of April, 1805, 
spoke to the " Resolutions " in the Commons for im- 
peaching the Treasurer of the Navy, he thought proper 
to intimate that he " had a strong suspicion that Jelh'coe 
was in the same partnership with Mark Sprott, Alex- 
ander Trotter, and Lord Melville. He had been suffered 
to remain a public debtor for a whole^ year after he was 
known to be in arrears upwards of 24,000?. During 
next year 11,000?. more had accrued. It would not have 
been fair to have turned too short on an old companion. 



THE INVENTIONS OF HENKY CORT. 163 

It would, perhaps, too, have been dangerous, since un- 
pleasant discoveries^miglit have met the public eye. It 
looked very much as if, mutually conscious of criminality, 
they had agreed to be silent, and keep their own secrets." 

In making these offensive observations, Whitbread was 
manifestly actuated by political enmity. They were 
utterly unwarrantable. In the first place, Melville had 
been formally acquitted of Jellicoe's deficiency by a writ 
of Privy Seal, dated 31st May, 1800 ; and secondly, the 
committee appointed in that very year (1805) to rein- 
vestigate the naval accounts, had again exonerated him, 
but intimated that they were of opinion there was remiss- 
ness on his part in allowing Jellicoe to remain in his 
ofiice after the discovery of his defalcations. 

In the report made by the commissioners to the Houses 
of Parliament in 1805,* the value of Cort's patents was 
estimated at only 100?. . Referring to the schedule of 
Jellicoe's alleged assets, they say, "Many of the debts 
are marked as bad; and we apprehend that the debt 
from Mr. Henry Cort, not so marked, of 54,000/. and 
upwards, is of that description." As for poor, bankrupt 
Henry Cort, these discussions availed nothing. On the 
death of JeUicoe, he left his iron-works, feeling himself 
a ruined man. He made many appeals to the govern- 
ment of the day for restoral of his patents, and offered to 
find security for payment of the debt due by his firm to 
the Crown, but in vain. In 1794 an appeal was made 
to Mr. Pitt, by a number of influential members of Par- 
liament, on behalf of the inventor and his destitute fam- 
ily of twelve children, when a pension "of 200Z. a year 
was granted him. This Mr. Cort enjoyed until the year 

* Tenth Report of the Commissioners of Naval Inquiry. See also 
Report of Select Committee on the IQth Naval Report. May, 1805. 



164 . INDUSTEIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

1800, when lie died, broken in health and spirit, in his 
sixtieth year. He was buried in Hampstead Churcliyard, 
where a stone marking the date of his death is still to be 
seen. A few years since it was illegible, but it has re- 
cently been restored by his surviving son. 

Though Cort thus died in comparative poverty, he laid 
the foundations of many gigantic fortunes. He may be 
said to have been in a great measure the author of our 
modern iron aristocracy, wlio stUl manufacture after the 
processes which he invented or perfected, but for which 
they never paid him a , shilling of royalty. These men 
of gigantic fortunes have owed much — we might almost 
say everything — to the ruined projector of " the little 
mill at Fontley." Their wealth has enriched many fam- 
ilies of the older aristocracy, and has been the foundation 
of several modern peerages. Yet Henry Cort, the rock 
jfrom which they were hewn, is already all but forgotten ; 
and his surviving children, now aged and injfirm, are 
dependent for their support upon the slender pittance 
wrung by repeated entreaty and expostulation from the 
state. 

The career of Richard Crawshay, the first of the great 
ironmasters who had the .sense to appreciate and adopt 
the methods of manufacturing iron invented by Henry 
Cort, is a not unfitting - commentary on the sad history 
we have thus briefly described. It shows how, as re- 
spects mere money-making, shrewdness is more potent 
than invention, and business faculty than manufacturing 
skiU. Richard Crawshay was born at Normanton, near 
Leeds, the son "of a small Yorkshire farmer. Wlien a 
youth, he worked on his father's farm, and looked forward 
to occupying the same condition in life ; but a difierence 
with his father unsettled his mind, and at the age of flf- 



THE INVENTIONS OF HENRY COET. 165 

teen he determined to leave his home, and seek his for- 
tune elsewhere. Like most unsettled and enterprising 
lads, he first made for London, riding to town on a pony 
of his own, which, with the clothes on his back, formed 
his entire fortune. It took him a fortnight to make the 
journey, in consequence of the badness of the roads. 
Arrived in London, he sold his pony for fifteen pounds, 
and the money kept him untU he succeeded in finding 
employment. • He was so fortunate as to be taken upon 
trial by a Mr. Bicklewith, who kept an ironmonger's shop 
in York Yard, Upper Thames Street ; and his first duty 
there was to clean out the ofiice, put the stools and desks 
in order for the other clerks, run errands, and act as 
porter when occasion required. Young Crawshay was 
very attentive, industrious, and shrewd, and became 
known in the office as " the Yorkshire Boy." Chiefly 
because of his " cuteness," his master appointed him to 
the department of selling flat-irons. The London washer- 
women of that day were very sharp and not very honest, 
and it used to be said of them, that, where they bought 
one flat-iron, they generally contrived to steal two. Mr. 
Bicklewith thought he could not do better than set the 
Yorkshireman to watch the washerwomen, and, by way 
of inducement to him to be vigilant, he gave young 
Crawshay an interest in that branch of the business, 
which was soon found to prosper under his charge. After 
a few more years, Mr. Bicklewith retired, and left to 
Crawshay the cast-iron business in York Yard. This 
he stni further increased. There was not at that time 
much enterprise in the iron trade, but Crawshay endeav- 
ored to connect himself with what there was of it. The 
price of iron was then very high, and the best sorts were 
still imported from abroad; a good deal of the foreign 



166 INDUSTEIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

iron and steel being still landed at the Steelyard, on the 
Thames, in the immediate neighborhood of Crawshay's 
ironmongery store. 

It seems to have occurred to some London capitalists 
that money was then to be made in the iron trade, and 
that South "Wales was a good field for an experiment. 
The ^soU there was known to be full of coal and iron-stone, 
and several small u'on-works had for some time been 
carried on, which were supposed to be doing well. Mer- 
thyr Tydvil was one of the places at which operations 
had been begun ; but the place being situated in a hill 
district, of diflBcult access, and the manufacture being 
still in a very imperfect state, the progress made was for 
some time very slow. Land containing coal and iron 
was deemed of very little value, as may be inferred 
from the fact that, in the year 1765, Mr. Anthony Bacon, 
a man of much foresight, took a lease from Lord Talbot, 
for ninety-nine years, of the minerals under forty square 
miles of country surrounding the then insignificant hamlet 
of Merthyr Tydvil, at the trifling rental of 2001. a year. 
There he erected iron-works, and supplied the govern- 
ment with considerable quantities of cannon and iron 
for different purposes ; and, having earned a competency, 
he retired from business in 1782, sub-letting his mineral 
tract in four divisions, — the Dowlais, the Penydan-an, 
the Cyfartha, and the Plymouth Works, north, east, west, 
and south of Merthyr Tydvil. 

Mr. Eichard Crawshay became the lessee of what Mr. 
Mushet has called " the Cyfartha flitch of the great 
Bacon domain," There he proceeded to carry on the 
works established by Mr. Bacon with increased spirit ; 
his son William, whom he left in charge of the iron- 
mongery store in London, supplying him with capital to 



THE INVENTIONS OF HENRY COET. 167 

put into the iron-works as fast as he could earn it by the 
retail trade. In 1787, we find Richard Crawshay manu- 
facturing with difficulty ten tons of bar-iron weekly, and 
it was of a very inferior character,* — the means not 
having yet been devised at Cyfartha for malleableizing 
the pit-coal cast-iron with economy or good eflPect. Yet 
Crawshay found a ready market for all the iron he could 
make, and he is said to have counted the gains of the 
forge-hammer close by his house at the rate of a penny 
a stroke. In course of time he found it necessary to 
erect new furnaces ; and, having adopted the processes 
invented by Henry Cort, he was thereby enabled greatly 
to increase the production of his forges, until, in 1812, 
we find him stating to a committee of the House of 
Commons that he was making ten thousand tons of bar- 
iron yearly, or an average produce of two hundred tons 
a week. But this quantity, great though it was, has 
since been largely increased, the total produce of the 
Crawshay furnaces of Cyfartha, Ynysfach, and Korwan 
being upwards of fifty thousand tons of bar-iron yearly. 

The distance j)fMerthyr from Cardiff, the nearest port, 
being considerable, and the cost of carriage being very 
great by reason of the badness of the roads, Mr. Craw- 
shay set himself to overcome this great impediment to 
the prosperity of the Merthyr Tydvil district ; and, in 
conjunction with Mr. Homfray of the Penydarran Works, 

* Mr. Mushet says of the early manufacture of iron at Merthyr 
Tydvil, that " A modification of the charcoal refinery, a hoUow fire, 
was worked with coke as a substitute for charcoal, but the bar-iron 
hammered from the produce was very inferior." The pit-coal cast- 
iron was nevertheless found of a superior quality for castings, being 
more fusible and more homogeneous than charcoal-iron. Hence it 
was well adapted for cannon, which was for some time the principal 
article of manufacture at the Welsh works. 



168 INDUSTEIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

he planned and constructed the canal* to Cardiff, the 
opening of which, in 1795, gave an immense impetus to 
the iron trade of the neighborhood. Numerous other 
extensive iron-works became established there, until 
Merthyr Tydvil attained the reputation of being at once 
the richest and the dirtiest district in all Britain. Mr. 
Crawshay became known in the west of England as the 
" Iron King," and was quoted as the highest authority in 
aU questions relating to the trade. Mr. George Craw- 
shay, recently describing the founder of the family at 
a social meeting at Newcastle, said: '^In these days a 
name like ours is lost in the infinity of great manufac- 
turing firms which exist throughout the land ; but in 
those early times the man who opened out the iron dis- 
trict of Wales stood upon an eminence seen by all the 
world. It is preserved in the traditions of the family 
that when the ' Iron King ' used to drive from home in 
his coach-and-four into Wales, all the country turned out 
to see him, and quite a commotion took place when he 
passed through Bristol on his way to the works. My 
great-grandfather was succeeded by his son, and by his 
grandson ; the Crawshays have followed one another for 
four generations in the iron trade in Wales, and there 
they still stand at the head of the trade." The occasion 
on which these words were uttered was at a Christmas 
party, given to the men, about 1300 in number, employed 
at the iron-works of Messrs. Hawks, Crawshay, & Co., 
at Newcastle-upon-Tyne. These works were founded 

* It may be worthy of note that the first locomotive run upon a 
railroad was that constructed by Trevithick for Mr. Homfray in 1803, 
which was employed to bring down metal from the furnaces to the 
Old Forge. The engine was taken ofif the road because the tram- 
plates were found too weak to bear its weight without breaking. 



THE INVENTIONS OF HENRY CORT. 169 

in 1754 by William Hawks, a blacksmith, whose prin- 
cipal trade consisted in making claw-hammers for joiners. 
He became a thriving man, and eventually a large manu- 
facturer of bar-iron. Partners joined him, and in the 
course of the changes wrought by time, one of the Craw- 
shays, in 1842, became a principal partner in the firm. 

Illustrations of a like kind might be multiplied to any 
extent, showing the growth in our own time of an iron 
aristocracy of great wealth and influence, the result 
mainly of the successful working of the inventions of the 
unfortunate and unrequited Henry Cort. He has been 
the very Tubal Cain of England, — one of the principal 
founders of our ii'on age. To him we mainly owe the 
abundance of wrought-iron for machinery, for steam-en- 
gines, and for railways, at one third the price we were 
before accustomed to pay to the foreigner. We have by 
his inventions, not only ceased to be dependent upon 
other nations for our supply of iron for tools, implements, 
and arms, but we have become the greatest exporters of 
iron, producing more than all other European countries 
combined. In the opinion of Mr. Fairbairn of Manches- 
ter, the inventions of Henry Cort have already added six 
hundred nulliohs sterling to the wealth of the kingdom, 
whUe they have given employment to some six hundred 
thousand working people during three generations. And 
while the great ironmasters, by freely availing themselves 
of his inventions, have been adding estate to estate, the 
only estate secured by Henry Cort was the little domain 
of six feet by two in which he lies interred in Hampstead 
Churchyard. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

The Scotch Iron Manutacture. — Dr. Eoebuck. 
— David Mushet. 

*' Were public benefactors to be allowed to pass away, like hewera of wood and 
drawers of water, without commemoration, genius and enterprise would be de- 
prived of their most coTeted distinction." — Sir Henry Englefeeld. 

The account given of Dr. Roebuck in a Cyclopaedia of 
Biography, recently published in Glasgow, runs as fol- 
lows : " Roebuck, John, a physician and' experinaental 
chemist, born at Sheffield, 1718 ; died, after ruining him- 
self by his projects, 1794." Such is the short shrift 
which the man receives who fails. Had Dr. Eoebuck 
wholly succeeded in liis projects, he would probably have 
been esteemed as among the greatest of Scotland's bene- 
factors. Yet his life was not altogether a failure, as we 
think will sufficiently appear from the following brief 
account of his labors : — 

At the beginning of last century, John Roebuck's 
father carried on the manufacture of cutlery at Shef- 
field,* in the course of which he realized a competency. 
He intended his son to follow his own business, but the 
youth was irresistibly attracted to scientific pursuits, in 
which his father liberally encouraged him ; and he was 
placed first under the care of Dr. Doddridge, at North- 

* Dr. Roebuck's grandson, John Arthur Roebuck, by a singular co- 
incidence, at present represents Sheffield in the British Parliament. 



THE SCOTCH IRON MANUFACTURE. 171 

ampton, and afterwards at the University of Edinburgh, 
where he applied himself to the study of medicine, and 
especially of chemistry, which was then attracting con- 
siderable attention at the principal seats of learning in 
Scotland. While residing at Edinburgh young Roebuck 
contracted many intimate friendships with men who after- 
wards became eminent in literature, such as Hume and 
Robertson the historians, and the circumstance is sup- 
posed to have contributed not a little to his partiality in 
favor of Scotland, and his afterwards selecting it as the 
field for his industrial operations. 

After graduating as a physician at Leyden, Roebuck 
returned to England, and settled at Birmingham in the 
year 1745, for the purpose of practising his profession. 
Birmingham was then a principal seat of the metal manu- 
facture, and its mechanics were reputed to be among the 
most skilled in Britain. Dr. Roebuck's attention was 
early drawn to the scarcity and deamess of the material 
in which the mechanics worked, and he sought by experi- 
ment to devise some method of smelting iron otherwise 
than by means of charcoal. He had a laboratory fitted 
up in his house for the purpose of prosecuting his inqui- 
ries, and there he spent every minute that he could spare 
from his professional labors. It was thus that he in- 
vented the process of smeltnig iron by means of pit-coal 
which he afterwards embodied in the patent hereafter to 
be referred to. At the same time he invented new 
methods of refining gold and silver, and of employing 
them in the arts, which proved of great practical value to 
the Birmingham tradesmen, who made extensive use of 
them in their various processes of manufacture. 

Dr. Roebuck's inquiries had an almost exclusively 
practical direction, and in pursuing them his main ob- 



172 INDUSTEIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

ject was to render them subservient to the improvement 
of the industrial arts. Thus he sought to devise more 
economical methods of producing the various chemicals 
used in the Birmingham trade, such as ammonia, subli- 
mate, and several of the acids ; and his success was such 
as to induce him to erect a large laboratory for their 
manufacture, which was conducted with complete success 
by his friend Mr. Garbett. Among his inventions of this 
character, was the modern process of manufacturing vitri- 
olic acid in leaden vessels, in large quantities, instead of 
in glass vessels, in small quantities, as formerly practised. 
His success led him to consider the project of establishing 
a manufactory for the purpose of producing oil of vitriol 
on a large scale ; and, having given up his practice as a 
physician, he resolved, with his partner Mr. Garbett, to 
establish the proposed works in the neighborhood of 
Edinburgh. He removed to Scotland with that object, 
and began the manufacture of vitriol at Prestonpans in 
the year 1749. The enterprise proved eminently lucra- 
tive, and, encouraged by his success. Roebuck proceeded 
to strike out new branches of manufacture. He started 
a pottery for making white and brown ware, which event- 
ually became established, and the manufacture exists in 
the same neighborhood to this day. 

The next enterprise in which he became engaged was 
one of still greater importance, though it proved emi- 
nently unfortunate in its results as concerned himself. 
While living at Prestonpans, he made the friendship of 
Mr. William Cadell, of Cockenzie, a gentleman who had 
for some time been earnestly intent on developing the 
industry of Scotland, then in a very backward condition. 
]Mr. Cadell had tried, without success, to establish a 
manufactory of iron ; and, though he had heretofore failed, 



THE SCOTCH HION MANUFACTURE. 173 

he hoped that with the aid of Dr. Roebuck he might yet 
succeed. The Doctor listened to his suggestions with 
interest, and embraced the proposed enterprise with zeaL 
He immediately proceeded to organize a company, in 
which he was joined by a number of his friends and rela- 
tives. His next step was to select a site for the intended 
works, and make the necessary arrangements for begin- 
ning the manufacture of iron. After carefully examining 
the country on both sides of the Forth, he at length made 
choice of a site on the banks of the river Carron, in Stir- 
lingshire, where there was an abundant supply of water, 
and an inexhaustible supply of iron, coal, and limestone 
in the immediate neighborhood, and there Dr. Roebuck 
planted the first iron-works in Scotland. 

In order to carry them on with the best chances of suc- 
cess, he brought a large number of skilled workmen from 
England, who formed a nucleus of industry at Carron, 
where their example and improved methods of working 
served to train the native laborers in their art. At a 
subsequent period, Mr. Cadell, of Carronpark, also brought 
a number of skilled English nail-makers into Scotland, 
and settled them in the village of Camelon, where, by 
teaching others, the business has become handed down to 
the present day. 

The first furnace was blown at Carron on the first day 
of January, 1760; and in the course of the same year 
the Carron Iron-Works turned out fifteen hundred tons 
of iron, then the whole annual produce of Scotland. 
Other furnaces were shortly after erected on improved 
plans, and the production steadily increased. Dr. Roe- 
buck was indefatigable in his endeavors to improve the 
manufacture, and he was one of the first, as we have said, 
to revive the use of pit-coal m refining the ore, as appears 



174 INDUSTKIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

from his patent of 1762. He there describes his new 
process as follows : " I melt pig or any kind of cast-iron 
in a hearth heated with pit-coal by the blast of bellows, 
and work the metal until it is reduced to nature, which I 
take out of the fire and separate to pieces ; then I take 
the metal thus reduced to nature and expose it to the 
action of a hollow pit-coal fire, heated by the blast of 
bellows, until it is reduced to a loop, which I draw out 
under a common forge-hammer into bar-iron." This 
method of manufacture was followed with success, thpugh 
for some time, as indeed to this day, the principal pro- 
duction of the Carron Works was castings, for which the 
peculiar quality of the Scotch iron admirably adapts it. 
The well-known Carronades,* or " Smashers," as they 
were named, were cast in large numbers at the Carron 
Works. To increase the power of his blowing apparatus, 
Dr. Roebuck called to his aid the celebrated Mr. Smea- 
ton, the engineer, who contrived and erected for him at 
Carron the most perfect apparatus of the kind then in 
existence. It may also be added, that out of the Carron 
enterprise, in a great measure, sprang the Forth and 
Clyde Canal, the first artificial navigation in Scotland. 
The Carron Company, with a view to securing an im- 
proved communication with Glasgow, themselves surveyed 

* The carronade was invented by General Eobert Melville [Mr. 
Nasmyth says it was by Miller of Dalswinton], who proposed it for 
discharging sixty-eight pound shot with low charges of powder, in 
order to produce the increased splintering or smashing effects which 
were known to result from such practice. The first piece of the kind 
was cast at the Carron Foundery, in 1779, and General Melville's family 
have now in their possession a small model of this gun, with the 
inscription : " Gift of the Carron Company to Lieutenant-General 
Melville, inventor of the smashers and lesser carronades, for solid, 
ship, shell, and carcass shot, &c. First used against French ships 
in 1779." 



THE SCOTCH IKON MANUFACTURE. 175 

a line, wbicli was only given up in consequence of the 
determined opposition of the land-owners ; but the proj- 
ect was again revived through their means, and was 
eventually carried out after the designs of Smeaton and 
Brindley. 

While the Carron foundery was pursuing a career of 
safe prosperity, Dr. Roebuck's enterprise led him to 
embark in coal-mining, with the object of securing an 
improved supply of fuel for the iron-works. He became 
the lessee of the Duke of Hamilton's extensive coal-mines 
. at Boroughstoness, as well as of the salt-pans which were 
connected with them. The mansion of KinneU went 
with the lease, and there Dr. Roebuck and his family 
took up their abode. Kinneil House was formerly a 
country seat of the Dukes of Hamilton, and is to this day 
a stately old mansion, remindmg one of a French chateau. 
Its situation is of remarkable beauty, its windows over- 
looking the broad expanse of the Firth of Forth, and 
commanding an extensive view of the country along its 
northern shores. The place has become, in a measure, 
classical, KianeU House having been inhabited, since Dr. 
Roebuck's time, by Dugald Stewart, who there wrote his 
Philosophical Essays.* 

* Wilkie the painter once paid him a visit there while in Scotland 
studying the subject of his " Penny Wedding "; and Dugald Stewart 
found for him the old farm-house with the cradle-chimney, which he 
introduced in that picture. But Kinneil House has had its imaginary 
inhabitants as well as its real ones, the ghost of a Lady Lilburn, once 
an occupant of the place, stUl "haunting" some of the unoccupied 
chambers. Dugald Stewart told Wilkie one night, as he was going 
to bed, of the unearthly wailings which he himself had heard proceed- 
ing from the old apartments ; but to him at least they had been ex- 
plained by an old door opening out upon the roof bemg blown in on 
gusty nights, when a jarring and creaking noise was heaxd aU over 
the house. One advantage derived from the house being " haunted " 



176 INDUSTRIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

When Dr. Roebuck began to sink for coal at tbe new 
mines, he found it necessary to erect pumping-machinery 
of the most powerful kind that could be contrived, in 
order to keep the mines clear of water. For this purpose 
the Newcomen engine, in its then state, was found insuf- 
ficient; and when Dr. Roebuck's friend, Professor ^lack of 
Edinburgh, informed him of a young man of his acquaint- 
ance, a mathematical-instrument maker at Glasgow, hav- 
ing invented a steam-engine calculated to work with 
increased power, speed, and economy, compared with 
Newcomen's, Dr. Roebuck was much interested, and 
shortly after entered into a correspondence with James 
Watt, the mathematical-instrument maker aforesaid, on 
the subject. The Doctor urged that Watt, who, up to 
that time, had confined himself to models, should come 
over to Kinneil House, and proceed to erect a working 
engine in one of the outbuildings. The English work- 
men whom he had brought to the Carron works would, 
he justly thought, give Watt a better chance of success 
with his engine, than if made by the clumsy whitesmiths 
and blacksmiths of Glasgow, quite unaccustomed as they 
were to first-class work ; and he proposed himself to cast 
the cylinders at Carron, previous to Watt's intended visit 
to him at Kinneil. 

Watt paid his promised visit in May, 1768, and Roe- 
buck was by this time so much interested in the invention, 
that the subject of his becoming a partner with Watt, 
with the object of introducing the engine into general 
use, was seriously discussed. Watt had been laboring at 
his invention for several years, contending with many dif- 

■was, that the garden was never broken into, and the winter apples and 
stores were at all times kept safe from depredation in the apartments 
of the Lady Lilburn. 



THE SCOTCH IRON MANUFACTURE. 177 

Acuities, but especially with the main diflBculty of limited 
means.. He had borrowed considerable sums of money 
from Dr. Black to enable him to prosecute his experi- 
ments, and he felt the debt to hang like a millstone round 
his neck. Watt was a sickly, fragile man, and a constant 
suflferer from violent headaches ; besides he was by nature 
timid, desponding, painfuUy anxious, and easily cast down 
by failure. Indeed, he was more than once on the point 
of abandoning his invention in despair. On the other 
hand. Dr. Roebuck was accustomed to great enterprises, 
a bold and undaunted man, and disregardful of expense 
where he saw before him a reasonable prospect of suc- 
cess. His reputation as a practical chemist and philoso- 
pher, and his success as the founder of the Prestonpans 
Chemical Works and of the Carron Iron- Works, justified 
the friends of Watt in thinking that he was of all men 
the best calculated to help him at this juncture, and hence 
they sought to bring about a more intimate connection 
between the two. The result was, that Dr. Roebuck 
eventually became a partner to the extent of two thirds 
of the invention, took upon him the debt owing by Watt 
to Dr. Black, amounting to about 1,200?., and undertook 
to find the requisite money to protect the invention by 
means of a patent. The necessary steps were taken ac- 
cordingly, and the patent right was secured by the begin- 
ning of 1769, though the perfecting of his model cost 
Watt much further anxiety and study. 

It was necessary for Watt occasionally to reside with 
Dr. Roebuck at Kinneil House while erecting his first 
engine there. It had been originally intended to erect it 
in the neighboring town of Boroughstoness, but as there 
might be prying eyes there, and Watt wished to do his 
work in privacy, determined " not to puff," he at length 

8* L 



178 INDUSTRIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

fixed upon an outhouse still standing, close behind the 
mansion, by the burnside in the glen, whei'e there was 
abundance of water and secure privacy. Watt's extreme 
diffidence was often the subject of remark at Dr. Roe- 
buck's fireside. To the Doctor his anxiety seemed quite 
painful, and he was very much disposed to despond under 
apparently trivial difiiculties. Roebuck's hopeful nature 
was his mainstay throughout. "Watt himself was ready 
enough to admit this ; for, writing to his friend Dr. Small, 
he once said : " I have met with many disappointments ; 
and I must have sunk under the burden of them if I 
had not been supported by the friendship of Dr. Roe- 
buck." 

But more serious troubles were rapidly accumulating 
upon Dr. Roebuck himself ; and it was he, and not Watt, 
that sank under the burden. The progress of Watt's 
engine was but slow, and long before it could be applied 
to the pumpmg of Roebuck's mines, the difficulties of the 
undertaking on wliich he had entered overwhelmed him. 
The opening out of the principal coal involved a very 
heavy outlay, extending over many years, during which 
he sank not only his own but his wife's fortune, and — 
what distressed him most of all — large sums borrowed 
from his relatives and friends, which he was unable to 
repay. The consequence was, that he was eventually 
under the necessity of withdrawing his capital from the 
refining works at Bii^mingham and the vitriol works at 
Prestonpans. At the same time, he transferred to Mr. 
Boulton of Soho his entire interest in Watt's steam- 
engine, the value of which, by the way, was thought so 
small that it was not even included among the assets ; 
Roebuck's creditors not estimating it as worth one far- 
thing. Watt sincerely deplored his partner's misfortunes, 



THE SCOTCH IRON MANUFACTURE. 179 

but could not help him. " He has been a most sincere 
and generous friend," said Watt, " and is a truly worthy- 
man," And again : " My heart bleeds for him, but I can 
do nothing to help him : I have stuck by him till I have 
much hurt myself ; I can do so no longer ; my family 
calls for my care to provide for them." The later years 
of Dr. Roebuck's life were spent in comparative obscu- 
rity ; and he died in 1794, in his 76th year. 

He lived to witness the success of the steam-engine, 
the opening up of the Boroughstoness coal,* and the 
rapid extension of the Scotch iron trade, though he 
shared in the prosperity of neither of those branches 
of industry. He had been working ahead of his age, 
and he suffered for it. He fell in the breach at the 
critical moment, and more fortunate men marched over 
his body into the fortress which his enterprise and valor 
had mainly contributed to win. Before his great under- 
taking of the Garron "Works, Scotland was entirely de- 
pendent upon other countries for its supply of iron. In 
1760, the first year of its operations, the whole produce 
was 1,500 tons. In course of time other iron-works were 
erected, at Clyde Cleugh, Muirkirk, and Devon, — the 
managers and overseers of which, as weU as the work- 
men, had mostly received their training and experience 
at Carron, — until at length the iron trade of Scotland 
has assumed such a magnitude that its manufacturers are 

* Dr. Roebuck had been on the brink of great good fortune, but he 
did not know it. Mr. Ralph Moore, in his " Papers on the Black-band 
Iron-stones " (Glasgow, 1861), observes: " Strange to say, he was leav- 
ing behind him, almost as the roof of one of the searas of coal which 
he worked, a valuable black-band iron-stone, upon which Kinneil Iron- 
Works are how founded. The coal-field continued to be worked until 
the accidental discovery of the black-band, about 1845. The old coal- 
pits are now used for working the iron-stone." 



180 INDUSTEIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

enabled to export to England and other countries up- 
wards of 500,000 tons a year. 'How different this state 
of things from the time when raids were made across the 
Border for the purpose of obtaining a store of iron plun- 
der to be carried back into Scotland ! 

The extraordinary expansion of the Scotch iron trade 
of late years has been mainly due to the discovery by 
David Mushet of the Black-Band iron-stone in 1801, and 
the invention of the Hot-Blast by James Beaumont Neil- 
son in 1828. David Mushet was born at Dalkeith, near 
Edinburgh, in 1772.* Like other members of his family, 
he was brought up to metal-founding. At the age of 
nineteen he joined the staff of the Clyde Iron- Works, 
near Glasgow, at a time when the Company had only 
two blast-furnaces at work. The ofiice of accountant, 
which he held, precluded him from taking any part in 
the manufacturing operations of the concern. But being 
of a speculative and ingenious turn of mind, the remark- 
able conversions which iron underwent in the process of 
manufacture very shortly began to occupy his attention. 
The subject was much discussed by the young men about 
the works, and they frequently had occasion to refer to 
Fourcroy's well-known book for the purpose of determin- 
ing various questions of difference which arose among 
them in the course of their inquiries. The book was, 
however, in many respects, indecisive and unsatisfactory ; 
and, in 1793, when a reduction took place in the Com- 
pany's staff, and David Mushet was left nearly the sole 

* The Mushets are an old Kincardine family ; but they were almost 
extinguished by the plague in the reign of Charles the Second. Their 
numbers were then reduced to two ; one of whom remained at Kincar- 
dine, and the other, a clergyman, the Rev. George Mushet, accompanied 
Montrose as chaplain. He is buried in Kincardine churchyard. 



THE SCOTCH IRON MANUFACTURE. 181 

occupant of the office, he determined to study the subject 
for himself experimentally, and in the first place to ac- 
quire a thorough knowledge of assaying, as the true key 
to the whole art of iron-making. 

He first set up his crucible upon the bridge of the 
reverberatory furnace used for melting pig-iron, and filled 
it with a mixture carefully compounded according to the 
formula of the books ; but, notwithstanding the shelter of 
a brick, placed before it to break the action of the flame, 
the crucible generally split in tw(5, and not unfrequently 
melted and disappeared altogether. To obtain better re- 
sults, if possible, he next had recourse to the ordinary 
smith's fire, carrying on his experiments in the evenings 
after office-hours. He set his cruci,ble upon the fire, on a 
piece of fire-brick, opposite the nozzle of the bellows ; 
covering the whole with coke, and then exciting the flame 
by blowing. This mode of operating produced somewhat 
better results, but still neither the iron nor the cinder ob- 
tained resembled the pig or scoria of the blast-furnace, 
which it was his ambition to imitate. From the irregu- 
larity of the results, and the frequent failure of the cru- 
cibles, he came to the conclusion that either his furnace, 
or his mode of fluxing, was in fault, and he looked about 
him for a more convenient means of pursuing his experi- 
ments. A small, square furnace had been erected in the 
works for the purpose' of heating the rivets used for the 
repair of steam-engine boilers ; the furnace had for its 
chimney a cast-iron pipe six or seven inches in diameter 
and nine feet long. After a few trials with it, he raised 
the heat to such an extent that the. lower end of the pipe 
was melted off, without producing any very satisfactory 
results on the experimental crucible, and his operations 
were again brought to a stand-stUl. A chimney of brick 



182 INDUSTRIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

having been substituted for the cast-iron pipe, he was, 
however, enabled to proceed with his trials. 

He continued to pursue his experiments in assaying for 
about two years, during which he had been working en- 
tirely after the methods described in books ; but, feeling 
the results stiU misatisfactory, he determined to borrow 
no more from th6 books, but to work out a system of his 
own, which should insure results similar to those pro- 
duced at the blast-furnace. This he eventually succeeded 
in effecting by numerous experiments performed in the 
night ; as his time was fully occupied by his office duties 
during the day. At length these patient experiments 
bore their due fruits. David Mushet became the most 
skilled assayer at the, works; and when a difficulty oc- 
curred in smelting a quantity of new iron-stone which 
had been contracted for, the manager himself resorted to 
the bookkeeper for advice and information ; and the skill 
and experience which he had gathered during his nightly 
labors enabled him readily and satisfactorily to solve the 
difficulty and suggest a suitable remedy. Has rieward for 
this achievement was the permission, which was imme- 
diately granted him by the manager, to make use of his 
own assay-furnace, in which he thenceforward continued 
his investigations, at the same time that he instructed the 
manager's son in the art of assaying. This additional 
experience proved of great benefit to him ; and he con- 
tinued to prosecute his inquiries with much zeal, some- 
times devoting entire nights to experiments in assaying, 
roasting, and cementing iron-ores and iron-stone, decar- 
bonating cast-iron for steel and bar-iron, and various like 
operations. His general practice, however, at that time 
was, to retire between two and three o'clock in the morn- 
ing, leaving directions with the engine-man to call him at 



THE SCOTCH ffiON MANXJFACTUEE. 183 

half past five, so as to be present in the office at six. But 
these praiseworthy experiments were brought to a sudden 
end, as thus described by himself : — 

" In the midst of my career of investigation," says he,* 
" and without a cause being assigned, I was stoj)ped short. 
My furnaces, at the order of the manager, were pulled in 
pieces, and an edict was passed that they should never be 
erected again. Thus terminated my researches at the 
Clyde Iron-Works. It happened at a time when I was 
interested — and I had been two years previously occu- 
pied — in an attempt to convert cast-iron into steel, with- 
out fusion, by a process of cementation, -^liich had for its 
object the dispersion or absorption of the superfluous car- 
bon contained in the cast-iron, — an object which at that 
time appeared to me of so great importance, that, with 
the consent of a friend, I erected an assay and cementing 
furnace at the distance of about two miles from the Clyde 
Works. Thither I repaired at night, and sometimes at 
the breakfast and dinner hours during the day. This 
plan of operation was persevered in for the whole of one 
summer, but was found too uncertain and laborious to be 
continued. At the latter end of the year 1798 I left my 
chambers, and removed from the Clyde Works to the dis- 
tance of about a mile, where I constructed several furnaces 
for assaying and cementing, capable of exciting a greater 
temperature than any to which I before had access ; and 
thus for neaPly two years I continued to carry on my 
investigations connected with, iron and the alloys of the 
metals. 

"Though operating in a retired manner, and holding 
little communication with others, my views and opinions 
upon the rationale of iron-making spread over the estab- 

* Papers on Iron and Steel. By David Mushet. London, 1840. 



184 . INDUSTRIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

lisliment. I was considered forward in affecting to see 
and explain matters iu a different AYay from others who 
were much my seniors, and who were content to be 
satisfied with old methods of explanation, or with no 
explanation at ' all. . . . Notwithstanding these early 
reproaches, I have lived to see the nomenclature of 
my youth furnish a vocabulary of terms in the art. of 
iron-making, which is used by many of the ironmas- 
ters of the present day with freedom and effect, in 
communicating with each other on the subject of their 
respective manufactures. Prejudices seldom outlive the 
generation to wflfch they belong, when opposed by a more 
rational system of explanation. In this respect, Time (as 
my Lord Bacon says) is the greatest of all innovators. 

" In a similar manner, Time operated in my favor, in 
respect to the Black-Band Iron-stone.* The discovery of 
this was made in 1801, when I was engaged in erecting 
for myself and partners the Calder Ii'on- Works. Great 
pi-ejudice was excited against me by the ironmasters and 
others of that day in presuming to class the wild coals of 

* This valuable description of iron ore was discovered by Mr. Mushet, 
as he afterwards informs us {Papers on Iron and Steel, 121), in the year 
1801, when crossing the river Calder, in the parish of Old Monkland. 
Having subjected a specimen which he found in the river-bed to the 
test of his crucible, he satisfied himself as to its properties, and pro- 
ceeded to ascertain its geological position and relations. He shortly 
found that it belonged to the upper part of the coal-formation, and 
hence he designated it carboniferous iron-stone. He prosecuted his 
researches, and foi;nd various rich beds of the mineral distributed 
throughout the western counties of Scotland. On analysis, it was 
found to contain a little over fifty per cent of protoxide of iron. The 
coaly matter it contained was not its least valuable ingredient; for by 
the aid of the hot-blast it was afterwards found practicable to smelt it 
almost without any addition of coal. Seams of black-band have since 
been discovered and successfully worked in Edinbm-ghshire, Stafford- 
shire, and North Wales. 



THE SCOTCH IRON MANUFACTURE. 185 

the country (as black-band was called) with iron-stone 
fit and proper for the blast furnace. Yet that discovery 
has elevated Scotland to a considerable rank among the 
iron-making nations of Europe, with resources stiU in 
store that may be considered inexhaustible. But such 
are the consolatory effects of Time, that the discoverer 
of f 801 is no longer considered the intrusive visionary of- 
the laboratory, but the acknowledged benefactor of his 
country at large, and particularly of an extensive class 
of coal and mine proprietors and ironmasters, who have 
derived, and are stUl deriving, great wealth from this 
important discovery ; and who, in the spirit of grateful 
acknowledgment, have pronounced it worthy of a crown 
of gold, or a monumental record on the spot where the 
discovery was first made. 

" At an advanced period of life, such considerations are 
soothing and satisfactory. Many under similar circum- 
stances have not, in their own lifetime, had that measure 
of justice awarded to them by their country to which they 
were equally entitled. I accept it, however, as a boon 
justly due to me, and as an equivalent in some degree 
for that laborious course of investigation which I had 
prescribed for myself, and which, in early life, was car- 
ried on under circumstances of personal exposure and 
inconvenience, which nothing but a frame of iron could 
have supported. They atone also, in part, for that disap- 
pointment sustained in early life by the speculative habits 
of one partner, and the constitutional nervousness of an- 
other, which eventually occasioned my separation from 
the Calder Iron- Works, and lost me the possession of 
extensive tracts of black-band iron-stone, which I had 
secm-ed while the value of the discovery was known only 
to myself." 



186 INDUSTRIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

]Mr. Mushet published the results of Ms laborious in- 
vestigations in a series of papers in the Philosophical 
Magazine, — afterwards reprinted in a collected form in 
1840, under the title of " Papers on Iron and Steel." 
These papers are among the most valuable original con- 
tributions to the literature of the iron-manufacture that 
have yet been given to the world. They contain t?ie 
germs of many inventions and discoveries in iron and 
steel, some of which were perfected by Mr. Mushet him- 
self, while others were adopted and worked out by differ- 
ent experimenters. In 1798 some of the leading French 
chemists were endeavoring to prove by experiment that 
steel could be made by contact of the diamond with bar- 
iron in the crucible, the carbon of the diamond being 
liberated and entering into combination with the iron, 
forming steel. In the animated controversy which occur- 
red on the subject, Mr. Mushet's name was brought into, 
considerable notice ; one of the subjects of his published 
experiments having been the conversion of bar-iron into 
steel in the crucible by contact with regulated proportions 
of charcoal. The experiments which he made in con- 
nection with this controversy, though in themselves un- 
productive of results, led to the important discovery by 
Mr. Mushet of the certain fusibility of malleable iron at a 
suitable temperature. 

Among the other important results of Mr. Mushet's 
life-long labors, the following may be summarily men- 
tioned : The preparation of steel from bar-iron by a direct 
process, combining the iron with carbon; the discovery 
of the beneficial effects of oxide of manganese on iron and 
steel ; the use of oxides of iron in the puddling-furnace 
in various modes of appliance ; the production of pig-iron 
from the blast-furnace, suitable for puddHng, without the 



THE SCOTCH IRON MANUFACTURE. 187 

intervention of the refinery ; and the application of the 
hot-blast to anthracite coal in iron-smelting. For the 
process of combining iron with carbon for the production 
.of steel, Mr. Mushet took out a patent in November, 
1800 ; and many years after, when he had discovered the 
beneficial effects of oxide of manganese on steel, Mr. 
Josiah Heath founded upon it his celebrated patent for 
the making of cast-steel, which had the effect of raising 
the annual production of that metal in Shefiield from 
three thousand to one hundred thousand tons. His appli- 
cation of the hot-blast to anthracite coal, after a process 
invented by him and adopted by the Messrs. Hill, of the 
Plymouth Iron- Works, South Wales, had the effect of 
producing savings equal to about 20,000Z. a year at those 
works ; and yet, strange to say, Mr. Mushet himself never 
received any consideration for his invention. 

The discovery of Titanium by Mr. Mushet in the 
hearth of a blast-furnace in 1794 would now be regarded 
as a mere isolated fact, inasmuch as Titanium was not 
placed in the Kst of recognized metals until Dr. Wollas- 
ton, many years later, ascertained its qualities. But in 
connection with the fact, it may be mentioned that Mr. 
Mushet's youngest son, Robert, reasoning on the peculiar 
circumstances of the discovery in question, of which ample 
record is left, has founded upon it his Titanium process, 
which is expected by him eventually to supersede all 
other methods of manufacturing steel, and to reduce very 
materially the cost of its production. 

While he lived, Mr. Mushet was a leading authority on 
all matters connected with Iron and Steel, and he contrib- 
uted largely to the scientific works of his time. Besides 
his papers in the Philosophical Journal, he wrote the ar- 
ticle " Iron " for Napier's Supplement to the Encylopaedia 



188 INDUSTEIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

Britannica; and the articles "Blast Furnace" and "Blow- 
ing Machine " for Rees's Cyclopjedia. The two latter 
articles had a considerable influence on the opposition to 
the intended tax upon iron in 1807, and were frequently 
referred to in the discussions on the subject in Parliament. 
Ml*. Mushet died in 1847. 



CHAPTER IX. 

Intention of the Hot-Blast. — James Beaumont 

Neil SON. 

"Whilst the exploits of the conqueror and the intrigues of the demagogue are 
faithfully preserved through a succession of ages, the persevering and unobtru- 
Bive efforts of genius, developing the best blessings of the Deity to man, are often 
consigned to oblivion." — David Mushet. 

The extraordinary value of the black-band iron-stone 
was not at first duly recognized, perhaps not even by Mr. 
Mushet himself. For several years after its discovery by 
him, its use was confined to the Calder Iron-Works, 
where it was employed in mixture with other iron-stones 
of the argillaceous class. It was afterwards partially 
used at the Clyde Iron-Works, but nowhere else, a strong 
feeling of prejudice being entertained against it on the 
part of the iron trade generally. It was not until the 
year 1825 that the Monkland Company used it alone, 
without any other mixture than the necessary quantity 
of limestone for a flux. " The success of this Company," 
says Mr. Mushet, " soon gave rise to the Gartsherrie and 
Dundyvan furnaces, in the midst of which progress came 
the use of raw pit-coal and the Hot-Blast, — the latter 
one of the greatest discoveries in metallurgy of the pres- 
ent age, and, above every other process, admirably adapt- 
ed for smelting the black-band iron-stone." From the 
introduction of this process the extraordinary develop- 



190 INDUSTRIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

ment of tte iron-manufacture of Scotland may be said to 
date ; and we accordingly propose to devote the present 
chapter to an account of its meritorious inventor. 

James Beaumont Neilson was born at Shettleston, a 
roadside village about three miles eastward of Glasgow, 
on the 22d of June, 1792. His parents belonged to the 
working class. His father's earnings during many labo- 
rious yeai'S of his life did not exceed sixteen shillings a 
week. He had been bred to the trade of a millwright, 
and was for some time in the employment of Dr. Roebuck 
as an engine-wright at his colliery near Boroughstoness. 
He was next employed in a Hke capacity by Mr. Beau- 
mont, the mineral-manager of the colheries of Mrs. Cun- 
ningham of Lamshaw, near Irvine in Ayrshii-e ; after 
which he was appointed engine-wright at Ayr, and subse- 
quently at the Govan Coal- Works near Glasgow, where 
he remained until his death. It was while working at 
the Irvine Works that he first became acquainted with 
his future wife, Marion Smith, the daughter of a Ren- 
frewshire bleacher, a woman remarkable through life for 
her clever, managing, and industrious habits. She had 
the charge of Mi'S. Cunningham's children for some time 
after the marriage of that lady to Mr. Beaumont, and it 
was in compliment to her former mistress and her hus- 
band that she named her youngest son James Beamnont 
after the latter. 

The boy's education was confined to the common ele- 
ments of reading, writing, and arithmetic, which he partly 
acquired at the parish school of Strathbungo near Glas- 
gow, and partly at the Chapel School, as it was called, in 
the Gorbals at Glasgow. He had finally left school be- 
fore he was fourteen. Some time before he left, he had 
been partially set to work, and earned four shillings a 



JAMES BEAUMONT NEILSON. 191 

week by employing a part of each day in driviug a small 
condensing engine which his father had put up in a neigh- 
boring quarry. After leaving school, he was employed 
for two years as a gig boy on one of the winding engines 
• at the Govan colliery. His parents now considered him 
of fit age to be apprenticed to some special trade, and as 
Beaumont had much of his father's tastes for mechanical 
pursuits, it was determined to put him apprentice to a 
working engineer. His elder brother John was then 
acting as engineman at Oakbank, near Glasgow, and 
Beaumont was apprenticed under him to learn the trade. 
John was a person of a studious and serious turn of mind, 
and had been strongly attracted to follow the example of 
the brothers Haldane, who were then exciting great in- 
terest by their preaching thi'oughout the North ; but his 
father set his face against his son's " preaching at the back 
o' dikes," as he called it; and so John quietly settled 
down to his work. The engine which the two brothers 
managed was a very small one, and the master and ap- 
prentice served for engineman and fireman. Here the 
youth worked for three years, employuig his leisure hours 
in the evenings in remedying the defects of his early edu- 
cation, and endeavoring to acquire a knowledge of English 
grammar, drawing, and mathematics. 

On the expiry of his apprenticeship, Beaumont contin- 
ued for a time to work under his brother, as journeyman, 
at a guinea a week ; after which, in 1814, he entered the 
employment of William Taylor, coal-master at Irvine, 
and he was appointed engine-wright of the colliery at a 
salary of 70?. to 80/. a year. One of the improvements 
which he introduced in the working of the colliery, while 
he held that ofiice, was the laying down of an edge rail- 
way of cast-iron, in lengths of three feet, from the pit 



192 INDUSTRIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

to the harbor of Irvine, a distance of three miles. At the 
age of twenty-three, he married his first wife, Barbara 
Montgomerie, an Irvine lass, with a " tocher " of 250^. 
This little provision was all the more serviceable to him, 
as his master, Taylor, becoming unfortmiate in business^ 
he was suddenly thrown out of employment, and the little 
fortune enabled the newly married pair to hold their 
heads above water tUl better days came round. They 
took a humble tenement, consisting of a room and a 
kitchen, in the Cowcaddens, Glasgow, where their first 
child was born. 

About this time a gas-work, the first in Glasgow, was 
projected, and the company having been formed, the 
directors advertised for a superintendent and foreman, to 
whom they offered a "liberal salary." Though Beau- 
mont had never seen gaslight before, except at the illu- 
mination of his father's colliery office after the Peace of 
Amiens, — which was accomphshed in a very simple 
and original manner, without either condenser, purifier, 
or gas-holder, — and though he knew nothing of the art 
of gas-making, he had the courage to apply for the situa- 
tion. He was one of twenty candidates, and the fortunate 
one ; and in August, 1817, we find him appointed fore- 
man of the Glasgow Gas-Works, for five years, at the 
salary of 901. a year. Before the expiry of his term he 
was reappointed for six years more, at the advanced sal- 
ary of 200?., with the status of manager and engineer of 
ihe works. His salary was gradually increased to 400?. 
a yeai', with a free dwelling-house, until 1847, when, after 
a faithful service of thirty years, during which he had 
largely extended the central works^ and erected branch 
works in Tradeston and Partick, he finally resigned the 
management. 



JAMES BEAUMONT NEILSON. 193 

The situation of manager of the Glasgow Gas-Works 
was in many respects well suited for the development of 
Mr. Neilson's peculiar abilities. In the first place, it 
afforded him facilities for obtaining theoretical as well as 
•practical knowledge in chemical science, of which he was 
a diligent student at the Andersonian University, as well 
as of natural philosophy and mathematics in their higher 
branches. In the next place, it gave free scope for his 
ingenuity in introducing improvements in the manufac- 
ture of gas, then in its infancy. He was the first to 
employ clay retorts ; and he introduced sulphate of iron 
as a self-acting purifier, passing the gas through beds of 
charcoal to remove its oily and tarry elements. The 
swallow-tail or union jet was also his invention, and it 
has since come into general use. 

While managing the Gas-Works, one of Mr. Neilson's 
labors of love was the establishment and direction by him 
of a Workmen's Institution for mutual improvement. 
Having been a workman himself, and experienced the 
disadvantages of an imperfect education in early life, as 
well as the benefits arising from improved culture in later 
years, he desired to impart some of these advantages to 
the workmen in his employment, who consisted chiefly 
of persons from remote parts of the Highlands or from 
Ireland. Most of them could not even read, and his 
principal difficulty consisted in persuading them that it 
was of any use to learn. For some time they resisted 
his persuasions to form a Workmen's Institution, with a 
view to the establishment of a library, classes, and lec- 
tures, urging, as a sufiicient plea for not joining it, that 
they could not read, and that books would be of no use 
to them. At last Mr. Neilson succeeded, though with 
considerable difficulty, in inducing fourteen of the work- 

9 ' M 



194 INDUSTRIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

men to adopt his plan. Each member was to contribute 
a small sum monthly, to be laid out in books, the Gas 
Company providing the members with a comfortable 
room in which they might meet to read and converse 
in the evenings, instead of going to the alehouse. The 
members were afterwards allowed to take the books home 
to read, and the room was used for the purpose of con- 
versation on the subjects of the books read by them, and 
occasionally for lectures delivered by the members them- 
selves on geography, arithmetic, chemistry, and mechan- 
ics. Their numbers increased so that the room in which 
they met became insufficient for their accommodation, 
when the Gas Company provided them with a new and 
larger place of meeting, together with a laboratory and 
workshop. In the former they studied practical chem- 
istry, and in the latter they studied practical mechanics, 
making for themselves an air-pump and an electrifying 
machine, as well as preparing the various models used 
in the course of the lectures. The effects on the work- 
men were eminently beneficial, and the institution came 
to be cited as among the most valuable of its kind in the 
kingdom.* IVIi". Neilson throughout watched carefully 
'over its working, and exerted himself in all ways to pro- 
mote its usefulness, in which he had the zealous co-opera- 
tion of the leading workmen themselves, and the gratitude 
of aU. On the opening of the new and enlarged rooms 
in 1825, we find him delivering an admirable address, 
which was thought worthy of republication, together with 
the reply of George Sutherland, one of the workmen, in 
which Ml'. Neilson's exertions as its founder and chief 
supporter were gratefully and forcibly expressed.t 

* Article by Dugald Bannatyne in Glasgow Mechanic's Magazine, 
No. 53, December, 1824. . 

t Glasgow MecJianic's 3fagazine, Vol. III. p. J59. 



JAMES BEAUMONT NEILSON. 193 

It was during the period of Ms connection with the 
Glasgow Gas-Works that Mr. Neilson directed his atten- 
tion to the smelting of iron. His views in regard to the 
subject were at first somewhat crude, as appears from 
a paper read by him before the Glasgow Philosophical 
Society early in 1825. It appears that in the course 
of the preceding year Ms attention had been called to 
the subject by an iron-maker, who' asked him if he 
thought it possible to purify the air blo^vn into the blast- 
furnaces, in like manner as carburetted hydrogen gas was 
purified. The iron-master supposed that it was the pres- 
ence of sulphur in the air that caused blast-furnaces to 
work irregulai'ly, and to make bad iron in the summer 
months. Mr. Neilson was of opinion that this was not 
the true cause, and he was rather disposed to tMnk it 
attributable to the want of a due proportion of oxygen in 
summer, when the air was more rarefied, besides contain- 
ing more aqueous vapor, than in winter. He therefore 
thought the true remedy was in some way or other to 
throw in a greater proportion of oxygen ; and he sug- 
gested that, in order to dry the air, it should be passed, 
on its way to the furnace, through two long tunnels con- 
taining calcined lime. But further inquiry served to 
correct Ms views, and eventually led Mm to the true 
theory of blasting. 

Shortly after, Ms attention was directed by Mr. James 
Ewing to a defect in one of the Muirkirk blast-furnaces, 
situated about half a mile distant from the blowing-engine, 
which was found not to work so well as others wMch 
were situated close to it. The circumstances of the case 
led Mr. Neilson to form the opinion, that, as air increases 
in volume according to temperature, if he were to heat 
it by passing it through a red-hot vessel, its volume 



196 INDUSTEIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

would be increased, according to the well-known law, 
and the blast might thus be enabled to do more duty in 
the distant furnace. He proceeded to make a series of 
experiments at the Gas- Works", trying the effect of heated 
air on the illuminating power of gas, by bringing up a 
stream of it in a tube so as to surround the gas-burner. 
He found that by this means the combustion of the gas 
was rendered moi« intense, and its illuminating power 
greatly increased. He proceeded to try a similar exper- 
iment on a common smith's fire, by blowing the fire with 
heated air, and the effect was the same ; the fire was 
much more brilliant, and accompanied by an unusually 
intense degree of heat. 

Having obtained such marked results by these small 
experiments, it naturally occurred to him that a simUar 
increase in intensity of combustion and temperature 
would attend tlie application of the process to the blast- 
fiirnace on a large scale ; but being only a gas-maker, he 
had the greatest difiiculty in persuading any ironmaster 
to permit him to make the necessary experiments with 
blast-furnaces actually at work. Besides, his theory was 
altogether at variance with the established practice, which 
was to supply air as cold as possible, the prevailing idea 
being that tlie coldness of the air in winter was the cause 
of the best iron being then produced. Acting on these 
views, the efforts of the ironmasters had always been 
directed to the cooling of the blast, and various expe- 
dients were devised for the purpose. Thus the regulator 
was painted white, as being the coolest color ; the air was 
passed over cold water, and in some cases the air-pipes 
were even surrounded by ice, all with the object of keep- 
ing the blast cold. When, therefore, Mr. Neilson pro- 
posed entirely to reverse the process, and to employ hot 



JAMES BEAUMONT NEILSON. 197 

instead of cold blast, the incredulity of the ironmasters 
may well be imagined. What ! Neilson, a mere maker 
of gas, undertake to instruct practical men in the manu- 
facture of iron! And to suppose that heated air can be 
used for the purpose ! It was presumption in the ex- 
treme, or at best the mere visionary idea of a person 
altogether unacquainted with the subject ! 

At length, however, Mr. Neilson succeeded in inducing 
Mr. Charles Macintosh of Crossbasket, and Mr. Colin 
Dunlop of the Clyde Iron-Works, to allow him to make 
a trial of the hot-air process. In the first imperfect 
attempts the air was heated to little more than 80° Fah- 
renheit, yet the results were satisfactory, and the scorite 
from the furnace evidently contained less iron. He was 
therefore desirous of trying his plan .upon a more ex- 
tensive scale, with the object, if possible, of thoroughly 
establishing the soundness of his principle. In this he 
was a good deal hampered even by those ironmasters 
who were his friends, and had promised him the requisite 
opportunities for making a fair trial of the new process. 
They strongly objected to his making the necessary al- 
terations in the furnaces, and he seemed to be as far 
from a satisfactory experiment as ever. In one instance, 
where he had so far succeeded as to be allowed to heat 
the blast-main, he asked permission to introduce deflect- 
ing plates in the main or to put a bend in the pipe, so as 
to bring the blast Inore closely agaiijst the heated sides 
of the pipe, and also increase the area of heating surface, 
in order to raise the temperature to a higher point ; but 
this was refused, and it was said that if even a bend were 
put in the pipe the furnace would stop working. These 
prejudices proved a serious difficulty in the way of our 
inventor, and several more years passed before he was 



198 INDUSTRIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

allowed to put a bend in the blast-main. After many 
years of perseverance, lie was, however, at length enabled 
to work out his plan into a definite shape at the Clyde 
Iron- Works, and its practical value was at once admitted. 
At the meeting of the Mechanical Engineers' Society, 
held in May, 1859, Mr. Neilson explained that his in- 
vention consisted solely in the principle of heating the 
blast between the engine and the furnace, and was not 
associated with any particular construction of the mter- 
mediate heating apparatus. This, he said, was the cause 
of its success ; and in some respects it resembled the 
invention of his countryman, James "Watt, who, in con- 
nection with the steam-engine, invented the plan of con- 
densing the steam in a separate vessel, and was successful 
in maintaining his invention by not limiting it to any 
particular construction of the condenser. On the same 
occasion he took the opportunity of acknowledging the 
firmness with wliich the English ironmasters had stood 
by bim when attempts were made to deprive him of the 
benefits of his invention ; and to them he acknowledged 
he was mainly indebted for the successful issue of the 
severe contests he had to undergo. For there were, 
of course, certain of the ironmasters, both English and 
Scotch, supporters of the cause of free trade in others' 
inventions, who sought to resist the patent, after it had 
come into general use, and had been recognized as one 
of the most valuable»improvements of modern times.* 

The patent was secured in 1828 for a term of fourteen 
years ; but, as Mr. NeUson did not himself possess the 

* Mr. Mashet described it as " a wonderful discovery," and one of 
the " most novel and beautiful improvements in his time." Professor 
Gregory of Aberdeen characterized it as " the greatest improvement 
•with which he was acquainted." Mr. Jessop, an extensive English 
iron manufacturer, declared it to be " of as great advantage in the iron 



JAMES BEAUMONT NEILSON. 199 

requisite capital to enable him to perfect tlie invention, 
or to defend it if attacked, lie found it necessary to invite 
other gentlemen, able to support him in these respects, to 
share its profits ; retaining for himself only three tenths 
of the whole. His partners were Mr. Charles Macintosh, 
Mr. Colin Dunlop, and Mr. John Wilson of Dundyvan. 
The charge made by them was only a shilling a ton for 
all iron produced by the new process ; this low rate being 
fixed in order to insure the introduction of the patent into 
general use, as well as to reduce to a minimum the temp- 
tations of the ironmasters to infringe it. 

The first trials of the process were made at the blast- 
furnaces of Clyde and Calder ; from whence the use of 
the hot-blast gradually extended to the other iron-mining 
districts. In the course of a few years every furnace 
in Scotland, with one exception (that at Carron), had 
adopted the improvement ; whUe it was also employed 
in half the furnaces of England and "Wales, and in many 
of the furnaces on the Continent and in America. In 
course of time, and with increasing experience, various 
improvements were introduced in -the process, more par- 
ticularly in the shape of the air-heating vessels ; the last 
form adopted being that of a congeries of tubes, similar 
to the tubular arrangement in the boiler of the locomo- 
tive, by which the greatest extent of heating surface was 
provided for the thorough heating of the aii\ By these 
modifications the temperature of the air introduced into 
the furnace has been raised from 240° to 600°, or the 
temperature of melting lead. To protect the nozzle of 

trade as Arkwright's machinery was in the cotton-spinning trade"; 
and Mr. Fairbairn, in his contribution on "Iron" in the Encyclopedia 
Bntannica, says that it '' has effected an entire revolution in the iron 
industry of Great Britain, and forms the last era in the history of this 
material." 



200 INDUSTEIAL BIOGEAPHY 

the air-pipe as it entered the furnace against the action 
of the intense heat to which it was subjected, a spiral 
pipe for a stream of cold water constantly to play in 
has been introduced within the sides of the iron tuyere 
through which the nozzle passes ; by which means the 
tuyere is kept comparatively cool, while the nozzle of 
the air-pipe is effectually protected.* 

This valuable invention did not escape the usual fate 
of successful patents, and it was on several occasions the 
subject of protracted litigation. The first action occurred 
in 1832 ; but the objectors shortly gave in, and renewed 
their Hcense. In -ISSQ, when the process had become 
generally adopted throughout Scotland, and, indeed, was 
found absolutely essential for smelting the peculiar ores 
of that country, — more especially Mushet's black-band, 
— a powerful combination was formed amongst the iron- 
masters to resist the patent. The litigation which en- 
sued extended over five years, during which period some 
twenty actions were proceeding in Scotland, and several 
in England. Three juries sat upon the subject at differ- 
ent times, and on three occasions appeals were carried to 
the House of Lords. One jury trial occupied ten days, 
during which a hundred and two witnesses were exam- 
ined ; the law costs on both sides amounting, it is sup- 
posed, to at least 40,000Z. The result was, that the 
novelty and merit of Mr. Neilson's invention were finally 
established, and he was secured in the enjoyment of the 
patent-right. 

We are gratified to add, that,.though Mr. Neilson had 
to part with two thirds of the profits of the invention to 

* The invention of the txibular air-vessels and the water-tuyere be- 
longs, we believe, to Mr. John Condie, sonaetime manager of the Blair 
Iron-Works. 



JAMES BEAUMONT NEILSON. 201 

secure the capital and influence necessary to bring it into 
general use, he reaHzed sufficient to enable him to enjoy 
the evening of his life in peace and comfort. He I'etired 
from active business to an estate which he purchased in 
1851 in the Stewartry of Kirkcudbright, where he is found 
ready to lend a hand in every good work, — whether 
in agricultural improvement, railway extension, or the 
moral and social good of those about him. Mindful of 
the success of his "Workmen's Institution at the Glasgow 
Gas-Works, he has, almost at his own door, erected a 
similar Institution for the use of the parish in which his 
property is situated, the beneficial effects of which have 
been very marked in the district. We may add that Mr. 
Neilson's merits have been recognized by many eminent 
bodies, — by the Institution of Civil Engineers, the Chemi- 
cal Society, and others, — the last honor conferred on him 
being his election as a Member of the Royal Society in 
1846. 

The invention of the hot-blast, in conjunction with the 
discovery of the black-band iron-stone, has had an extraor- 
dinary effect upon the development of the iron-manufac- 
ture of Scotland. The coals of that country are generally 
unfit for coking, and lose as much as fifty-five per cent iu 
the process. But by using the hot-blast, the coal could 
be sent to the blast-furnace in its raw state, by which a 
large saving of fuel was effected.* Even coals of an 

* Mr. Mushet says : " The greatest produce in iron per furnace with 
the black-band and cold-blast never exceeded sixty tons a week. The 
produce per furnace now averages ninety tons a week. Ten tons of 
this I attribute to the use of raw pit-coal, and the other twenty tons to 
the use of hot-blast." [Paj)ers on Ii^on and Steel, 127.] The produce 
per furnace is now two hundred tons a week and upwards. 

The hot-blast process was afterwards applied to the making of iron 
with the anthracite or stone coal of Wales ; for which a patent was 
9* 



202 INDUSTRIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

inferior quality were by its means made available for the 
manufacture of iron. But one of the peculiar qualities 
of the black-band iron-stone is, that in many cases it 
contains sufficient coaly matter for purposes of calcina- 
tion, without any admixture of coal whatever. Before 
its discovery, all the iron manufactured in Scotland was 
made from clay-band ; but the use of the latter has in a 
great measure been discontinued wherever a sufficient 
supply of black-band can be obtained. And it is found 
to exist very extensively in most of the midland Scotch 
counties, — the coal and iron measures stretching in a 
broad belt from the Firth of Forth to the Irish Channel 
at the Firth of Clyde. At the time when the hot-blast 
was invented, the fortunes of many of the older works 
were at a low ebb, and several of them had been discon- 
tinued ; but they were speedily brought to life again 
wherever black-band could be found. In 1829, the 
year after Neilson's patent was taken out, the total make 
of Scotland was twenty-nine thousand tons. As fresh 
discoveries of the mineral were made, in Ayrshire and 
Lanarkshire, new works were erected, until, in 1845, we 
find the production of Scotch pig-iron had increased to 
four hundred and seventy-five thousand tons. It has 
since increased to upwards of a million of tons, nineteen 
twentieths of which ai-e made from black-band iron- 
stone.* 

taken out by George Crane in 1836. Before the hot-blast was intro- 
duced, anthracite coal would not act as fuel in the blast-furnace. 
When put in, it merely had the effect? of putting the fire out. With 
the aid of the hot-blast, however, it now proves to be a most valuable 
fuel in smelting. 

* It is stated in the North British Review for November, 1845, that 
" As in Scotland every furnace — with the exception of one at Carron 
— now uses the hot-blast, the saving on our present produce of 400,000 



JAMES BEAUMONT NEILSON. 203 

Employment has thus been given to vast numbers of 
our industrial population, and the wealth and resources 
of the Scotch iron districts have been increased to an 
extraordinary extent. During the last year there were 
one hundred and twenty-five furnaces in blast throughout 
Scotland, each employing about four hundred men in 
making an average of two hundred tons a week ; and 
the money distributed amongst the workmen may readily 
be computed fi-om the fact that, under the most favorable 
circumstances, the cost of making iron, in wages alone, 
amounts to 36s. a ton.* 

An immense additional value was given to all land in 
which the black-band was found. Mr. Mushet mentions 
that in 1839 the proprietor of the Airdrie estate derived 
a royalty of 16,500^. from the mineral, which had not 
before its discovery yielded him one farthing. At the 
same time many fortunes have been made by pushing 
and energetic men who have of late years entered upon 
this new branch of industry. Amongst these may be 
mentioned the Bairds of Gartsherrie, who vie with the 
Guests aftd Crawshays of South Wales, and have ad- 
vanced themselves in the course of a very few years from 
the station of small farmers to that of great capitahsts, 
owning estates in many counties, holding the highest 
character as commercial men, and ranking among the 
largest employers of labor in the kingdom. 

tons of pig-iron is 2,000,000 tons of coals, 200,000 tons of limestone, and 
^650,000 sterling per annum." But as the Scotch produce is now 
above a million tons of pig-iroa a year, the above figures -will have to 
be multiplied by 2^ to give the present annual savings. 

* Papers read by Mr. Kalph Moore, Mining Engineer, Glasgow, be- 
fore the Eoyal Scottish Society of Arts, Edin., 1861, pp. 13, 14. 



CHAPTER X. 

Mechanical Inventions and Inventoks. 

" L'invention n'est-elle pas la po^aie de la Bcience ? . . . . Toutes les grandes 
d^couvertes portent avec elles la trace ineflfapable d'une pens^e poetique. n 
faut etre poete pour creer. Auasi, sommes-nous convaincus que si les puissantes 
machines, veritable source de la production et de I'industrie de nos jours, doivent 
reoevoir des modifications radicales, ce sera & des hommes d'imagination, et non 
point i des hommes purement speciaux, que I'on devra cette transformation." — 
E. M. Bataillb, Traite des Machines d Vapeur. 

Tools have played a highly important part in the 
history of civilization. Without tools and the ability to 
use them, man were indeed but a " poor, bare, forked 
animal," worse clothed than the birds, worse housed 
than the beaver, worse fed than the jackal. " Weak in 
himself," says Carlyle, " and of small stature, he stands 
on a basis, at most for the flattest-soled, of some half 
square foot, insecurely enough ; has to straddle out his 
legs, lest the very wind supplant him. Feeblest of 
bipeds ! Three quintals are a crushing load for him ; 
the steer of the meadow tosses him aloft like a waste 
rag. Nevertheless, he can use tools, can devise tools: 
with these the granite mountain melts into light dust be- 
fore him ; he kneads glornng iron as if it were soft paste ; 
seas are his smooth highway, winds and fire his unvarying 
steeds. Nowhere do you find hun without tools : without 
tools he is nothing;. with tools he is all." His very first 
contrivances to support life were tools of the simplest and 
rudest construction; and his latest achievements in the 



MECHANICAL INVENTIONS AND INVENTORS. 205 

substitution of machinery for the relief of the human 
hand and intellect are founded on the use of tools of a 
still higher order. Hence it is not without good reason 
that man has by some philosophers been defined as a 
tool-making animal. 

Tools, like everything else, had small beginnings. With 
the primitive stone hammer and chisel very little could 
be done. The felling of a tree vrould occupy a workman 
a month, unless helped by the destructive action of fire. 
Dwellings could not be built, the soil could not be tilled, 
clothes could not be fashioned and made, and the hewing 
out of a boat was so tedious a process that the wood must 
have been far gone in decay before it could be launched. 
It was a great step in advance to discover the art of 
working in metals, more especially in steel, one of the 
few metals capable of taking a sharp edge and keeping it. 
From the date of this discovery, working in wood and 
stone would be found comparatively easy ; and the results 
must speedily have been felt not only in the improvement 
of man's daily food, but in his domestic and social condi- 
tion. Clothing could then be made, the primitive forest 
could be cleared, and tillage carried on; abundant fuel 
could be obtained, dwellings erected, ships built, temples 
reared ; every improvement in tools marking a new step 
in the development of the human intellect, and a further 
stage in the progress of human civilization. 

The earliest tools were of the sipiplest possible charac- 
ter, consisting principally of modifications of the wedge ; 
such as the knife, the shears (formed of two knives work- 
ing on a joint), the chisel, and the axe. These, with the 
primitive hammer, formed the principals stock-in-trade of 
the early mechanics, who were handicraftsmen in the 
literal sense of the word. But the work which the early 



206 INDUSTEIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

craftsmen in wood, stone, brass, and iron contrived to 
execute sufficed to show how much expertness in the 
handling of tools will serve to compensate for their me- 
chanical imperfections. Workmen then sought rather to 
aid muscular strength than to supersede it, and mainly 
to facilitate the efforts of manual skill. Another tool 
became added to those mentioned above, which proved an 
additional source of power to the workman. We mean 
the Saw, which was considered of so much importance 
that its inventor was honored with a place among the 
gods in the mythology of the Greeks. This invention is 
said to have been suggested by the arrangement of the 
teeth in the jaw of a serpent, used by Talus the nephew 
of Dfedalus in dividing a piece of wood. From the rep- 
resentations of ancient tools found in the paintings at 
Herculaneum it appears that the frame-saw used by the 
ancients very nearly resembled that still in use ; and we 
are informed that the tools employed in the carpenters' 
shops at Nazareth at this day are in most respects the 
same as those represented in the buried Roman city. An- 
other very ancient tool referred to in the Bible and in 
Homer was the File, which was used to sharpen weapons 
and implements. Thus the Hebrews " had a file for the 
mattocks, and for the coulters, and for the forks, and for 
the axes, and to sharpen the goads." * When to these we 
add the adze, plane-irons, the augur, and the chisel, we 
sum up the tools principally relied on by the early me- 
chanics for working in wood and iron. 

Such continued to be the chief tools in use down almost 
to our own day. The smith was at first the principal 
tool-maker ; but fecial branches of trade were gradually 
established, devoted to tool-making. So long, however, 

* 1 Samuel xiii. 21. 



MECHANICAL INVENTIONS AND INVENTORS. 207 

as the workman relied mainly on Ms dexterity of hand, 
the amount of production was comparatively limited ; for 
the number of skilled workmen was but small. The arti- 
cles turned out by them, being the product of tedious 
manual labor, were too dear to come into common use, 
and wei'e made almost exclusively for the richer classes 
of the community. It was not until machinery had been 
invented and become generally adopted that many of the 
ordinary articles of necessity and of comfort were pro- 
duced in sufficient abundance and at such prices as ena- 
bled them to enter into the consumption of the great body 
of the people. 

But every improver of tools had a long and difficult 
battle to fight ; for any improvement in their effective 
power was sure to touch the interests of some established 
craft. Especially was this the case with machines, which 
are but tools of a more complete though complicated kind 
than those above described. 

Take, for instance, the case of the Saw. The tedious 
drudgery of dividing timber by the old-fashioned hand-saw 
is weU known. To avoid it, some ingenious person sug- 
gested that a number of saws should be fixed to a frame 
in a mill, so contrived as to work with a reciprocating 
motion, upwards and downwards, or backwards and for- 
wards, and that this frame so mounted should be yoked to 
the mill-wheel, and the saws driven by the power of wind 
or water. The plan was tried, and, as may readily be 
imagined, the amount of effective work done by this ma- 
chine-saw was immense, compared with the tedious pro- 
cess of sawing by hand. 

It wiU be observed, however, that the new method 
must have seriously interfered with the labor of the 
hand-sawyers ; and it was but natural that they should 



208 INDUSTEIAL BIOGEAPHY. 

regard the establishment of the saw-mills with suspicion 
and hostility. Hence a long period elapsed before the 
hand-sawyers would permit the new machinery to be set 
up and worked. The first saw-mill in England was 
erected by a Dutchman, near London, in 1663, but was 
shortly abandoned in consequence of the determined hos- 
tility of the workmen. More than a century passed be- 
fore a second saw-mill was set up ; when, in 1767, Mr. 
John Houghton, a London timber-merchant, by the desire 
and with the approbation of the Society of Arts, erected 
one at Limehouse, to be driven by wind. The work was 
directed by one James Stansfield, who had gone over to 
Holland for the purpose of learning the art of construct- 
ing and managing the sawing machinery. But the mill 
was no sooner erected than a mob assembled and razed it 
to the ground. The principal rioters having been pun- 
ished, and the loss to the proprietor having been made 
good by the nation, a new mUl was shortly after built, 
and it was suffered to work without further molestation. 

Improved methods of manufacture have usually had to 
encounter the same kind of opposition. Thus, when the 
Flemish weavers came over to England in the seven- 
teenth century, bringing with them their skill and their 
industry, they excited great jealousy and hostiUty amongst 
the native workmen. Their competition as workmen was 
resented as an injury, but their improved machinery was 
regarded as a far greater source of mischief. Li a memo- 
rial presented to the king in 1621 we find the London 
weavers complaining of the foreigners' competition, but 
especially that " they have made so bould of late as to 
devise engines for working of tape, lace, ribbin, and such 
like, wherein one man doth more among them than 7 
Englishe men can doe ; so as their cheap sale of commod- 



MECHANICAL INVENTIONS AND INVENTORS. 209 

ities beggereth all our Englishe artificers of that trade, 
and enrichetli them." * 

At a much more recent period new inventions have had 
to encounter serious rioting and machine-breaking fury. 
Kay of the fly-shuttle, Hargreaves of the spinning-jenny, 
and Arkwright of the spinning-frame, all had to fly from 
Lancashire, glad to escape with their lives. Indeed, says 
Mr. Bazley, " so jealous were the people, and also the 
legislature, of everything calculated to supersede men's 
labor, that when the Sankey Canal, six miles long, near 
"Warrington, was authorized about the middle of last cen- 
tury, it was on the express condition that the boats plyiug 
on it should be drawn by men only " ! f Even improved 
agricultural tools and machines have had the same oppo- 
sition to encounter ; and in our own time bands of rural 
laborers have gone from farm to farm breaking drill- 
ploughs, winnowing, threshing, and other machines, down 
even to the common drills, — not perceiving that if their 
policy had proved successful, and tools could hav^e been 
effectually destroyed, the human race would at once have 
been reduced to their teeth and nails, and civilization 



* State Papers, Dom. 1621, Vol. 88, No. 112. 

t Lectures on the Besults of the Great Exhibition of 1851, 2d Series, 
117. 

X Dr. Kirwan, late President of the Eoyal Irish Academy, who had 
travelled much on the continent of Europe, used to relate, when speak- 
ing of the diflSculty of introducing improvements in the arts and man- 
ufactures, and of the prejudices entertained for old practices, that, in 
Normandy, the farmers had been so long accustomed lo the use of 
ploughs whose shares were made entirely of wood, that they could not 
be prevailed on to make trial of those with iron ; that they considered 
them to be an idle and useless innovation on the long-established prac- 
tices of their ancestors ; and that they carried these prejudices so far 
as to force the government to issue an edict on the subject. And even 



210 INDUSTRIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

It is, no doubt, natural that tlie ordinary class of work- 
men should regard with prejudice, if not with hostility, 
the introduction of machines calculated to place them at 
a disadvantage and to interfere with their usual employ- 
ments ; for to poor and not very far-seeing men the loss 
of daily bread is an appalling prospect. But invention 
does not stand still on that account. Human brains will 
work. Old tools are improved and new ones invented, 
superseding existing methods of production, though the 
weak and unskilled may occasionally be pushed aside, or 
even trodden under foot. The consolation which remains 
is, that while the few suffer, society as a whole is vastly 
benefited by the improved methods of production which 
are suggested, invented, and perfected by the experience 
of successive generations. 

The living race is the inheritor of the industry and skiU 
of all past times ; and the civilization we enjoy is but the 
sum of the useful effects of labor during the past centu- 
ries. Nihil per saltum. By slow and often painful steps 
Nature's secrets have been mastered. Not an effort has 
been made but has had its influence. For no human 
labor is altogether lost ; some remnant of useful effect 
surviving for the benefit of the race, if not of the indi- 
vidual. Even atterflpts apparently useless have not really 
been so, but have served in some way to advance man to 
higher knowledge, skill, or discipline. " The loss of a 
position gained," says Professor Thomson, " is an event 
unknown in the history of man's struggle with the forces 
of inanimate nature." A single step won gives a firmer 

to the last they were so obstinate in their attachment to ploughshares 
of wood that a tumultuous opposition was made to the enforcement 
of the edict, which for a short time threatened a rebellion in the 
province. — Parkes, Chemical Essays, 4th ed., 475. 



IIECHANICAL INVENTIONS AND INVENTORS. 211 

foothold for further effort. The man may die, but the 
race survives and continues the work, — to use the poet's 
simile, mounting on stepping-stones of dead selves to 
higher selves. 

Philarete Chasles, indeed, holds that it is the Human 
Eace that is your true inventor : " As if to unite aU gen- 
erations," he says, " and to show that man can only act 
efficiently by association with others, it has been ordained 
that each inventor shall only interpret the first word of 
the problem he sets himself to solve, and that every great 
idea shall be the resume of the past at the same time that 
it is the germ of the future." And rarely does it happen 
that any discovery or invention of importance is made by 
one man alone. The thi-eads of iaquiiy are taken up and 
traced, one laborer succeeding another, each traciag it a 
little further, often without apparent result. This goes 
on sometimes for centuries, until at length some man, 
greater perhaps than his fellows, seeking to fulfil the 
needs of his time, gathers the various threads together, 
treasures up the gaui of past successes and failures, and 
uses them as the means for some solid achievement. Thus 
Newton discovered the law of gravitation, and thus James 
Watt invented the steam-engine. So also of the Loco- 
motive, of which Robert Stephenson said, " It has not 
been the invention of any one man, but of a race of me- 
chanical engineers." Or as Joseph Bramah observed, ia 
the preamble to his second Lock patent, " Among the 
number of patents granted there are comparatively few 
which can be called original, so that it is difficult to say 
where the boundary of one ends and where that of another 
begins." 

The arts are indeed reared but slowly ; and it was a 
wise observation of Lord Bacon, that we are too apt to 



212 INDUSTKIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

pass those ladders by wMcli they have been reared, and 
reflect the whole merit on the last new performer. Thus, 
what is hailed as an original invention is often found to be 
but the result of a long succession of trials and experi- 
ments gradually following each other, which ought rather 
to be considered as a continuous series of achievements 
of the human mind than as the conquest of any single in- 
dividual. It has sometimes taken centuries of experience 
to ascertain the value of a single fact in its various bear- 
ings. Like man himself, experience is feeble and appar- 
ently purposeless in its infancy, but acquires maturity and 
strength with age. Experience, however, is not limited 
to a lifetime, but is the stored-up wealth and power of 
our race. Even amidst the death of successive genera- 
tions it is constantly advancing and accumulating, exhibit- 
ing at the same time the weakness and the power, the 
littleness and the greatness, of our common humanity. 
And not only do we who live succeed to the actual results 
of our predecessors' labors, — to their works of learning 
and of art, their inventions and discoveries, their tools 
and machines, their roads, bridges, canals, and railways, 
— but to the inborn aptitudes of blood and brain which 
they bequeath to us, — to that " educabUity," so to 
speak, which has been won for us by the labors of many 
generations, and which forms our richest natural heritage. 
The beginning of most inventions is very remote. 
The first idea, born within some unknown brain, passes 
thence into others, and at last comes forth complete, after 
a parturition, it may be, of centuries. One starts the 
idea, another develops it, and so on, progressively, until 
at last it is elaborated and worked out in practice ; but 
the first, not less than the last, is entitled to his share in 
the merit of the invention, were it only possible to meas-- 



MECHANICAL INVENTIONS AND INVENTORS. 213 

ure and apportion it duly. Sometimes a great original 
mind strikes upon some new vein of hidden power, and 
gives a powerful impulse to the inventive faculties of 
man, which lasts through generations. More frequently, 
however, inventions are not entirely new, but modifica- 
tions of contrivances previously known, though to a few, 
and not yet brought into practical use. Glancing , back 
over the history of mechanism, we occasionally see an 
invention seemingly fuU-born, when suddenly it drops out 
of sight, and we hear no more of it for centuries. It is 
taken up de novo by some inventor, stimulated by the 
needs of his time, and falling again upon the track, he 
recovers the old footmarks, foUows them up, and completes 
the work. 

There is also such a thing as inventions being bora 
before their time, — the advanced mind of one generation 
projecting that which cannot be executed for want of the 
requisite means ; but in due process of time, when mech- 
anism has got abreast of the original idea, it is at length 
carried out ; and thus it is that modern inventors are ena- 
bled to eflPect many objects which their predecessoi"s had 
tried in vain to accomplish. As Louis Napoleon has said, 
" Inventions born before their time must remain useless 
until the level of common intellects rises to comprehend 
them." For tliis reason, misfortune is often the lot of the 
inventor before his time, though glory and profit may be- 
long to his successors. Hence the gift of inventing not 
unfrequently involves a yoke of sorrow. Many of the 
greatest inventors have lived neglected, and died unre- 
quited before their merits could be recognized and esti- 
mated. Even if they succeed, they often raise up hosts 
of enemies in the persons whose methods they propose to 
supersede. Envy, malice, and detraction meet them in 



214 INDUSTRIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

all their forms ; they are assailed by combinations of rich 
and unscrupulous persons to wrest from them the profits 
of their ingenuity ; and, last and worst of all, the success- 
ful inventor often finds his claims to originality decried, 
and himself branded as a copyist and a pirate. 

Among the inventions born out of time, and before 
the world could make adequate use of them, we can only 
find space to allude to a few, though they are so many 
that one is almost disposed to accept the words of Chaucer 
as true, that " There is nothing new but what has once 
been old " ; or, as another writer puts it, " There is noth- 
ing new but what has before been known and forgotten " ; 
or, in the words of Solomon, " The thing that hath been 
is that which shall be, and there is no new thing under 
the sun." One of the most important of these is the use 
of Steam, which was well known to the ancients ; but 
though it was used to grind drugs, to turn a spit, and to 
excite the wonder and fear of the credulous, a long time 
elapsed before it became employed as a useful motive- 
power. The inquiries and experiments on the subject 
extended through many ages. Friar Bacon, who flour- 
ished in the thirteenth century, seems fully to have an- 
ticipated, in the following remarkable passage, nearly aU 
that steam could accomplish, as well as the hydraulic- 
engine and the diving-bell, though the flying-machine yet 
remains to be invented : — 

" I will now," says the Friar, " mention some of the 
wonderful works of art and nature in which there is 
nothing of magic, and which magic could not perform. 
Instruments may be made by which the largest ships, 
with only one man guiding them, will be carried with 
greater velocity than if they were full of sailors. Chariots 
may be constructed that will move with incredible ra- 



MECHANICAL INVENTIONS AND INVENTORS. 215 

pidity, without the help of animals. Instruments of 
flying may be formed, in which a man, sitting at his 
ease and meditating on any subject, may beat . the air 
with his artificial wings, after the manner of birds. A 
small instrument may be made to raise or depress the 
greatest weights. An instrument may be fabricated by 
which one man may draw a thousand men to him by 
force and against their will ; as also machines which will 
enable men to walk at the bottom of seas or rivers with- 
out danger." 

It is possible that Friar Bacon derived his knowledge 
of the powers which he thus described from the traditions 
handed down of former iaventions which had been neg- 
lected and allowed to fall into oblivion ; for before the 
invention of printing, which enabled the results of inves- 
tigation and experience to be treasured up in books, there 
was great risk of the inventions of one age being lost to 
the succeeding- generations. Yet Disraeli the elder is of 
opinion that the Romans had invented printing without 
being aware of it ; or perhaps the senate dreaded the in- 
conveniences attending its use, and did not care to deprive 
a large body of scribes of their employment. They even 
used stereotypes, or immovable printing-types, to stamp 
impressions on their pottery, specimens of which still 
exist. In China the art of printing is of gi-eat antiquity. 
Lithography was well known in Germany, by the very 
name which it still bears, nearly three hundred years 
before Senefelder reinvented it; and specimens of the 
ancient art are yet to be seen in the Royal Museum 
at Munich.* 

Steam-locomotion, by sea and land, had long been 
dreamt of and attempted. Blasco de Garay made his 

* Edouakd Foubniee, Vleux-Nmf, I. 339. 



216 INDUSTKIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

experiment in the harbor of Barcelona as early as 1543 ; 
Denis Papin made a similar attempt at Cassel in 1707 ; 
but it was not until Watt had solved the problem of the 
steam-engine that the idea of the steamboat could be de- 
veloped in practice, which was done by Miller of Dals- 
winton in 1788. Sages and poets have frequently fore- 
shadowed inventions of great social moment. Thus Dr. 
Darwin's anticipation of the locomotive, in his Botanic 
Garden, published in 1791, before any locomotive had 
been invented, might almost be regarded as prophetic : — 
" Soon shall thy arm, lanconquered Steam ! afar 
Drag the slow barge, and drive the rapid car." 

Denis Papin first threw out the idea of atmospheric 
locomotion ; and Gauthey, another Frenchman, in 1782, 
projected a method of conveying parcels and merchandise 
by subterraneous tubes,* after the method recently pa- 
tented and brought into operation by the London Pneu- 
matic Despatch Company. The balloon was an ancient 
Italian invention, revived by Mongolfier long after the 
original had been forgotten. Even the reaping-machine 
is an old invention revived. Thus Barnabe Googe, the 
translator of a book from the German entitled " The 
whole Arte and Trade of Husbandrie," published in 
1577, in the reign of Elizabeth, speaks of the reaping- 
machine as a worn-out invention, — a thing " which was 
woont to be used in France. The device was a lowe 
kinde of carre with a couple of wheeles, and the frunt 
armed with sharpe syckles, whiche, forced by the beaste 
through the corne, did cut down al before it. This 
tricke," says Googe, " might be used in levell and 
champion countreys ; but with us it wolde make but 
ill-favoured woorke." f The Thames Tunnel was thought 

* Memoires de VAcademie des Sciences, 6 February, 1826. 
t Farmer's Magazine, 1817, No. LXXI. 291. 



MECHANICAL INVENTIONS AND INVENTORS. 217 

an entirely new manifestation of engineering genius ; but 
the tunnel under the Euphrates at ancient Babylon, and 
that under the wide mouth of the harbor at Marseilles (a 
much more difficult work), show that the ancients were 
beforehand with us in the art of tunnelling. Macadam- 
ized roads are as old as the Roman empire ; and sus- 
pension-bridges, though comparatively new in Europe, 
have been known in China for centuries. 

There is every reason to believe — indeed, it seems 
clear — that the Romans knew of gunpowder, though 
they only used it for purposes of fire-works ; while the 
secret of the destructive Greek-fire has been lost alto- 
gether. When gunpowder came to be used for purposes 
of war, invention busied itself upon instruments of de- 
struction. When recently examining the Museum of the 
Arsenal at Venice, we were surprised to find numerous 
weapons of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries embody- 
ing the most recent English improvements in arms, such 
as revolving pistols, rifled muskets, and breech-loading 
cannon. The latter, embodying Sir William Armstrong's 
modern idea, though in a rude form, had been fished up 
from the bottom of the Adriatic, where the ship armed 
with them had been sunk hundreds of years ago. Even 
Perkins's steam-gun was an old invention revived by 
Leonardo da Vinci, and by him attributed to Archime- 
des.* The Congreve-rocket is said to have an Eastern 
origin. Sir William Congreve having observed its de- 
structive effects when employed by the forces under 
Tippoo Saib in the Mahratta war, on which he adopted 
and improved the missile, and brought out the invention 
as his own. 

Coal-gas was regularly used by the Chinese for ligbt- 

* Reiw;-A^e?{/', I. 228 ; Inventa Nova-Aniiqua, 742. 
10 



218 INDUSTEIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

ing purposes long before it was known amongst us. Hy- 
dropathy was generally practised by tbe Romans, who 
established baths wherever they went. Even chloroform 
is no new thing. The use of ether as an anaesthetic was 
known to Albertus Magnus, who flourished in the thir- 
teenth century ; and in his works he gives a recipe for its 
preparation. In 1681 Denis Papin published his Traite 
des Operations sans Douleur, showing that he had dis- 
covered methods of deadening pain. But Ihe use of anass- 
thetics is much older than Albertus Magnus or Papin ; for 
the ancients had their nepenthe and mandragora; the 
Chinese their mayo, and the Egyptians their hachisch 
(both preparations of Cannabis Indica), the effects of 
which in a gi-eat measure resemble those of chloroform. 
What is perhaps still more surprising is the circumstance 
that one of the most elegant of recent inventions, that of 
sun-painting by the daguerrotype, was in the fifteenth 
century known to Leonardo da Vinci,* whose skiU as an 
architect and engraver, and whose accomplishments as a 
chemist and natural philosopher, have been almost en- 
tirely overshadowed by his genius as a painter.f The 
idea, thus early born, lay in oblivion until 1760, when 

* Vieux-Neuf, I. 19. See also Inventa Nova-Antiqua, 803. 

t Mr. Hallam, in his Introduction to the History of Europe, pronounces 
the following remarkable eulogium on this extraordinary genius: "If 
any doubt could be harbored, not only as to the right of Leonardo da 
Vinci to stand as the first name of the fifteenth century, which is be- 
yond all doubt, but as to his originality in so many discoveries, which 
probably no one man, especially in such circumstances, has ever made, 
it must be on an hypothesis not very untenable, that some parts of. 
physical science had already attained a height which mere books do 
not record." "Unpublished MSS. by Leonardo contain discoveries 
and anticipations of discoveries," says Mr. Hallam, " within the com- 
pass of a few pages, so as to strike us with something like the awe of 
preternatural knowledge." 



MECHANICAL INVENTIONS AND INVENTORS. 219 

the daguerrotype was again clearly indicated in a book 
published in Paris, written by a certain Tiphanie de la 
Roche, under the anagrammatic title of Giphantie. StiU 
later, at the beginning of the present centuiy, we find 
Josiah Wedgwood, Sir Humphry Davy, and James Watt 
makuig experiments on the action of light upon nitrate 
of silver ; and only within the last few months a silvered 
copper-plate has been found amongst the old household 
lumber of Matthew Boulton (Watt's partner), having on 
it a representation of the old premises at Soho, apparently 
taken by some such process.* 

In like manner, the invention of the electric telegraph, 
supposed to be exclusively modern, was clearly indicated 
by Schwenter in his Delassements Physico-Mathematiques, 
published in 1636; and he there pointed out how two 
individuals could communicate with each other by means 
of the magnetic needle. A century later, in 1746, Le 
Monnier exhibited a series of experiments in the Eoyal 
Gardens at Paris, showing how electricity could be trans- 
mitted through iron wire nine hundred and fifty fathoms 
in length ; and in 1753 we find one Charles Marshall 
publishing a remarkable description of the electric tel- 
egraph in the Scots' Magazine, under the title of "An 
Expeditious Method of conveying Intelligence." Again, 
in 1760, we find George Louis Lesage, Professor of 
Mathematics at Geneva, promulgating his invention of 

* The plate is now to be seen at the Museum of Patents at South 
Kensington. In the account which has been published of the above 
discovery it is stated that " an old man of ninety (recently dead or still 
alive) recollected, or recollects, that Watt and othei-s used to take 
portraits of people in a dark ( ?) room; and there is a letter extant of 
Sir William Beechey, begging the Lunar Society to desist from these 
experiments, as, were the process to succeed, it would ruin portrait- 
painting." 



220 INDUSTRIAL BIOGEAPHY. 

an electric telegraph, wHch he eventually completed and 
set to work in 1774. This instrument was composed 
of twenty-four metallic wires, separate from each other 
and enclosed in a non-conducting substance. Each wire 
ended in a stalk mounted with a little ball of elder-wood 
suspended by a sUk thread. When a stream of elec- 
tricity, no matter how slight, was sent through the wire, 
the elder-ball at the opposite end was repelled, such 
movement designating some letter of the alphabet. A 
few years later, we find Ai-thur Young, in his Travels 
in France, describing a similar machine invented by a 
M. Lomond, of Paris, the action of which he also de- 
scribes.* In these and similar cases, though the idea 
was boi'n and the model of the invention was actually 
made, it still waited the advent of the scientific mechan- 
ical inventor who should bring it to perfection, and em- 
body it in a practical, working form. 

Some of the most valuable inventions have descended 
to us without the names of their authors having been 

* " 16th Oct. 1787. In the evening to M. Lomond, a very ingenious 
and inventive mechanic, who has made an improvement of the jenny 
for spinning cotton. Common machines are said to make too hard a 
thread for certain fabrics, but this forms it loose and spongy. In elec- 
tricity he has made a remarkable discovery: you write two or three 
words on a paper ; he takes it with him into a room, and turns a 
machine enclosed in a cylindrical case, at the top of which is an elec- 
trometer, a small fine pith-ball; a wire connects with a similar cylinder 
and electrometer in a distant apartment; and his wife, by remarking 
the corresponding motions of the ball, writes down the words they 
indicate ; from which it appears that he has formed an alphabet of 
motions. As the length of the wire makes no difference in the effect, 
a correspondence might be carried on at any distance : within and 
without a besieged town, for instance; or for a purpose much more 
worthy, and a thousand times more harmless, between two lovers 
prohibited or prevented from any better connection. Whatever the 
uso may be, the invention is beautiful." — Arthur Young's Travels 
ii> France in 1787 - 8 - 9. London, 1792, 4to ed., p. 65. 



JIECHANICAL INVENTIONS AND INVENTORS. 221 

preserved. "We are the inheritors of an immense legacy 
of the results of labor and ingenuity, but we know not 
the names of our benefactors. Who invented the watch 
as a measurer of time ? "Who invented the fast and 
loose puUey ? "Wlio invented the eccentx'ic ? Who, asks 
a mechanical inquirer,* " invented the method of cutting 
screws with stocks and dies ? "Whoever he might be, he 
was certainly a great benefactor of liis species. Yet 
(adds the writer) his name is not known, though the 
invention has been so recent." This is not, however, 
the case with most modem inventions, the greater num- 
ber of which are more or less disputed. Who was enti- 
tled to the merit of inventing printing has never yet 
been detennined. Weber and Senefelder both laid claim 
to the invention of hthography, though it was merely an 
old German art revived. Even the invention of the 
penny-postage system by Sir Rowland Hill is disputed; 
Dr. Gray, of the British Museum, claiming to be its 
inventor, and a French writer alleging it to be an old 
French iavention.f The invention of the steamboat has 
been claimed on behalf of Blasco de Garay, a Spaniard ; 
Papin, a Frenchman ; Jonathan .HuUs, an Englishman ; 
and Patrick MUler of Dalswinton, a Scotchman. The 
invention of the spinning-machine has been variously 
attributed to Paul, Wyatt, Hargreaves, Higley, and Ark- 

* Mechanic's Magazine, 4th February, 1859. 

t A writer in the Monde saj's : " The invention of postage-stamps is 
far from being so modern as is generally supposed. A postal regula- 
tion in France of the year 1653, which has recently come to light, 
gives notice of the creation of pre-paid tickets to be used for Paris 
instead of money payments. These tickets were to be dated and 
attached to the letter or wrapped round it, in such a manner that the 
postman could remove and retain them on delivering the missive. 
These franks were to be sold by the porters of the convents, prisons, 
colleges, and other public institutions, at the price of one sou." 



222 INDUSTRIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

Wright. The invention of the balance-spring was claimed 
by Huyghens, a Dutchman ; HautefeuiUe, a Frenchman ; 
and Hooke, an Englisliman. Tliere is scarcely a point 
of detail in the locomotive but is the subject of dispute. 
Thus, the invention of the blast-pipe is claimed for 
Trevithick, George Stephenson, Goldsworthy Gurney, 
and Timothy Hackworth ; that of the tubular boiler, by 
Seguin, Stevens, Booth, and W. H. James ; that of the 
link-motion, by John Gray, Hugh Williams, and Eobert 
Stephenson. 

Indeed, many inventions appear to be coincident. A 
number of minds are working at the same time in the 
same track, with the object of supplying some want gen- 
erally felt ; and, guided by the same experience, they not 
unfrequently arrive at like results. It has sometimes 
happened that the inventors have been separated by great 
distances, so that piracy on the part of either was impos- 
sible. Thus, Hadley and Godfrey almost simultaneously 
invented the quadi'ant, the one in London, the other in 
Philadelphia ; and the process of clectrotyping was in- 
vented at the same time by Mr. Spencer, a working 
chemist at Liverpool, and by Professor Jacobi at St. 
Petersburg. The safety-lamp was a coincident inven- 
tion, made about the same time by- Sir Humphry Davy 
and George Stephenson ; and perhaps a still more re- 
markable instance of a coincident discovery was that of 
the planet Neptune by Leverrier at Paris and by Adams 
at Cambridge. 

It is always difficult to apportion the due share of 
merit which belongs to mechanical inventors, who are 
accustomed to work upon each other's liints and sugges- 
tions, as well as by their own experience. Some idea 
of this difficulty may be formed from the fact, that, in 



MECHANICAL INVENTIONS AND INVENTOES. 223 

the course of our investigations as to the origin of the 
planing-machine, — one of the most useful of modern 
tools, — we have found that it has been claimed on 
behalf of six inventors, — Fox of Derby, Rolierts of 
Manchester, Matthew Murray of Leeds, Spring of Aber- 
deen, Clement and George Rennie of London ; and there 
may be other claimants of whom we have not yet heard. 
But most mechanical inventions are of a very composite 
character, and are led up to by the labor and the study 
of a long succession of workers. Thus, Savary and New- 
comen led up to Watt ; Cugnot, Murdock, and Trevithick, 
to the Stephensons ; and Maudslay, to Clement, Roberts, 
N&smyth, Whitworth, and many more mechanical in- 
ventors. There is scarcely a process in the arts but has 
in like manner engaged miad after mind ia bringing it 
to perfection. " There is nothing," says IVIr. Hawkshaw, 
" reaUy worth having, that man has obtained, that has not 
been the result of a combined and gradual process of in- 
vestigation. A gifted individual comes across some old 
footmark, stumbles on a chain of previous research and 
inquiry. He meets, for instance, with a machine, the 
result of much previous labor ; he modifies it, pulls it to 
pieces, constructs and reconstructs it, and, by further trial 
and experiment, he arrives at the long-sought-for result."* 
But the making of the invention is not the sole diffi- 
culty. It is one thing to invent, said Sir Marc Brunei, 
and another thing to make the invention work. Thus 
when Watt, after long labor and study, had brought his 
invention to completion, he encountered an obstacle which 
has stood in the way of other inventors, and for a time 
prevented the introduction of their improvements, if not 

* Inaugural Address delivered before the Institution of Civil Engi- 
neers, 14th January, 1862. 



224 INDUSTEIAL BIOGEAPHY. 

led to their being laid aside and abandoned. This was 
the circumstance that the machine projected was so much 
in advance of the mechanical capability of the age that 
it was vmih the greatest difficulty it could be executed. 
When laboring upon his invention at Glasgow, "Watt was 
baffled and thrown into despair by the clumsiness and 
incompetency of his workmen. Writing to Dr. Koebuck 
on one occasion, he said, " You ask what is the principal 
hinderance in erecting engines ? It is always the smith- 
work." His first cylinder was made by a whitesmith, of 
hammered iron soldered together, but having used quick- 
silver to keep the cylinder air-tight, it dropped through 
the inequalities into the interior, and " played the devil 
with the solder." Yet, inefficient though the whitesmith 
was, Watt could ill spare him, and we find him writing 
to Dr. Roebuck almost in despair, saying, " My old white- 
iron man is dead ! " feeling his loss to be almost irrepar- 
able. His next cylinder was cast and bored at Carron, 
but it was so untrue that it proved next to useless. The 
piston could not be kejDt steam tight, notwithstanding the 
various expedients which were adopted of stuffing it with 
paper, cork, putty, pasteboard, and old hats. Even after 
Watt had removed to Birmingham, and he had the assist- 
ance of Boulton's best workmen, Smeaton expressed the 
opinion, when he saw the engine at work, that, notwith- 
standing the excellence of the invention, it could never 
be brought into general use because of the difficulty of 
getting its various parts manufactured with sufficient pre- 
cision. For a long time we find Watt, in his letters, 
complaining to his partner of the failure of his engines 
through " villanous bad workmanship." Sometimes the 
cylinders, when cast, were found to be more than an 
eighth of an inch wider at one end than the other ; and 



MECHANICAL INVENTIONS AND INVENTORS. 225 

under such circumstances it was impossible the engine 
could act with precision. Tet better work could not be 
had. First-rate workmen in machiuewy' did not as yet 
exist ; they were only in process of education. Nearly 
everything had to be done by hand. The tools used 
were of a very imperfect kind. A few ill-constructed 
lathes, with some drills and boring-machines of a rude 
sort, constituted the principal furniture of the workshop. 
Years after, when Brunei invented his block-machines, 
considerable time elapsed before he could find competent 
mechanics to construct them, and even after they had 
been constructed he had equal difficulty in finding com- 
petent hands to work them.* 

"Watt endeavored to remedy the defect by keeping cer- 
tain sets of workmen to special classes of work, allowing 
them to do nothing else. Fathers were induced to bring 
up their sons at the same bench with themselves, and 
initiate them in the dexterity which they had acquu-ed 
by experience ; and at Soho it was not unusual for the 
same precise line of work to be followed by members of 
the same family for three generations. In this way as 
great a degree of accuracy of a mechanical kind was 
secui-ed as was practicable under the circumstances. But 
notmthstanding all this care, accuracy of fitting could not 
be secured so long as the manufacture of steam-engines 
was conducted mainly by hand. There was usually a 
considerable waste of steam, which the expedients of 
chewed paper and greased hats packed outside the piston 
were insufficient to remedy ; and it was not until the 
invention of automatic machine-tools by the mechanical 
engineers about to be mentioned, that the manufacture 
of the steam-engine became a matter of comparative 

* Beamish's Memoir of Sir I. M. Brunei, 79, 80. 
10* o 



226 INDUSTRIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

ease and certainty. "Watt was compelled to rest satisfied 
with imperfect results, arising from imperfect workman- 
sliip. Thus, wri<Bng to Dr. Small respecting a cylinder 
eighteen inches in diameter, he said, " at the worst place 
the long diameter exceeded the short by only three 
eighths of an inch." How different from the state of 
things at this day, when a cylinder five feet wide will 
be rejected as a piece of imperfect workmanship if it 
be found to vary in any part more than the eightieth 
part of an inch in diameter ! 

Not fifty years since it was a matter of the utmost 
difficulty to set an engine to work, and sometimes of 
equal difficulty to keep it going. Though fitted by com- 
petent workmen, it often would not go at all. Then the 
foreman of the factory at which it was made was sent 
for, and he would almost live beside the engine for a 
month or more ; and after easing her here and screwing 
her up there, puttuig in a new part and altering an old 
one, packing the piston and tightening the valves, the 
machine would at length be got to work.* Now the 
case is altogether different. The perfection of modern 
machine-tools is such that the utmost possible precision 
is secured, and the mechanical engineer can calculate on 
a degree of exactitude that does not admit of a deviation 
beyond a thousandth part of an inch. When the powerful 
oscillating engines of the " Wanior " were put on board 

* There was the same clumsiness in all kinds of mill-work before 
the introduction of machine-tools. We have heard of a piece of ma- 
chinery of the old school, the wheels of which, when set to work, 
made such a clatter that the owner feared the engine would fall to 
pieces. The foreman who set it agoing, after working at it until he 
was almost in despair, at last gave it up, saying, "I think we had 
better leave the cogs to settle their differences with one another: they 
will grind themselves right in time! " 



MECHANICAL INVENTIONS AND INVENTORS. 227 

that ship, the parts, consisting of some five thousand sep- 
arate pieces, were brought from the different workshops 
of the Messrs. Penn and Sons, where they had been 
made by workmen who knew not the places they were 
to occupy, and fitted together with such precision that so 
soon as the steam was raised and let into the cylinders, 
the immense macliine began as if to breathe and move 
like a living creature, stretching its huge arms like a new- 
born giant, and then, after practising its strength a little 
and proving its soundness in body and limb, it started off 
with the power of above a thousand horses to try its 
strength in breasting the billows of the North Sea. 

Such are among the triumphs of modern mechanical 
engineering, due in a great measure to the perfection 
of the tools by means of which all works in metal are 
now fashioned. These tools are themselves among the 
most striking results of the mechanical invention of the 
day. They are automata of the most perfect kind, ren- 
dering the engine and machine-maker in a great measure 
independent of inferior workmen. For the machine tools 
have no unsteady hand, are not careless nor clumsy, do 
not work by rule of thumb, and cannot make mistakes. 
They will repeat their operations a thousand" times with- 
out tiring, or varying one hair's breadth in their action ; 
and will turn out, without complaining, any quantity of 
work, aU of like accuracy and finish. Exercising as they 
do so remarkable an influence on the development of 
modern industry, we now propose, so far as the mate- 
rials at our disposal will admit, to give an account of 
their principal inventors, beginning with the school of 
Bramah. 



CHAPTEE XI. 
Joseph Beamah. 



" The great Inventor is one who has walked forth upon the industrial worid, 
not from universities, but from hovels ; not as clad in silks and decked with 
honors, but as clad in fustian and grimed with soot and oil." — Isaac Taylor, 
Ultimate Civilization. 



The inventive faculty is so strong in some men that it 
may be said to amount to a passion, and cannot be re- 
strained. The saying that the poet is born, not made, 
applies with equal force to the inventor, who, though in- 
debted like the other to culture and improved opportuni- 
ties, nevertheless invents and goes on inventing mainly to 
gratify his own instinct. The inventor, however, is not 
a creator like the poet, but 'chiefly a finder-out. His 
power consists, in a great measure, in quick perception 
and accurate observation, and in seeing and foreseeing 
the effects of certain mechanical combinations. He must 
possess the gift of insight, as well as of manual dexterity, 
combined with the indispensable qualities of patience and 
perseverance, — for though baffled, as he often is, he.must 
be ready to rise up again unconquered even in the mo- 
ment of defeat. This is the stuff of which the greatest 
inventors have been made. The subject of the following 
memoir may not be entitled to take rank as a first-class 
inventor, though he was a most prolific one ; but, as the 
founder" of a school from which proceeded some of the 
most distinguished mechanics of our time, he is entitled 
to a prominent place in this series of memoirs. 



JOSEPH BEAMAH. 229 

Joseph Bramali was born in 1748 at the village of 
Stainborough, near Barnsley in Yorkshire, where his 
father rented a small farm under Lord Strafford. Joseph 
was the eldest of five children, and was early destined to 
follow the plough. After receiving a small amount of edu- 
cation at the village school, he was set to work upon the 
farm. From an early period he showed signs of con- 
structive skill. When a mere boy, he occupied his leisure 
hours in making musical instruments, and he succeeded in 
executing some creditable pieces of work with very im- 
perfect tools. A violin, which he made out of a solid 
block of wood, was long preserved as a curiosity. He 
was so fortunate as to be able to make a friend of the 
vUlage blacksmith, whose smithy he was in the practice 
of frequenting. The smith was an ingenious workman, 
and, having taking a liking for the boy, he made sundry 
tools for him out of old files and razor blades ; and with 
these, his fiddle and other pieces of work were mainly 
executed. 

Joseph might have remained a ploughman for life, but 
for an accident which happened to liis right ankle at the 
age of sixteen, which unfitted him for farm- work. While 
confined at home disabled, he spent his time in carving 
and making things in wood ; and then it occurred to him 
that,, though he could not now be a ploughman, he might 
be a mechanic. When sufficiently recovered, he was ac- 
cordingly put apprentice to one Allott, the village carpen- 
ter, under whom he soon became an expert workman. 
He could make ploughs, window-frames, or fiddles, with 
equal dexterity. He also made violoncellos, and was so 
fortunate as to sell one of his making for three guineas, 
which is still reckoned a good instrument. He doubtless 
felt within him the promptings of ambition, such as every 



230 INDUSTEIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

good workman feels, and at all events entertained the de- 
sire of rising in his trade. When his time was out, he 
accordingly resolved to seek work in London, whither he 
made the journey on foot. He soon found work at a cabi- 
net-maker's, and remained with him for some time, after 
which he set up business in a very small way on his own 
account. An accident which happened to him in the 
course of his daily work, again proved his helper, by 
affording him a degree of leisure which he at once pro- 
ceeded to turn to some useful account. Part of his busi- 
ness consisted in putting up water-closets, after a method 
invented or improved by a Mr. Allen; but the article 
was still very imperfect ; and Bramah had long resolved 
that if he could only secure some leisure for the purpose, 
he would contrive something that should supersede it al- 
together. A severe fall which occurred to him in the 
course of his business, and laid him up, though very 
much against his will, now afforded him the leisure which 
he desired, and he proceeded to made his proposed inven- 
tion. He took out a patent for it in 1778, describing 
himself in the specification as " of Cross Court, Carnaby 
Market [Golden Square], Middlesex, Cabinet Maker." 
He afterwards removed to a shop in Denmark Street, St. 
Giles's, and while there he made a further improvement 
in his invention by the addition of a water-cock, which 
he patented in 1783. The merits of the machine were 
generally recognized, and before long it came into exten- 
sive use, continuing to be employed, with but few altera- 
tions, until the present day. His circumstances improving 
with the increased use of his invention, Bramah proceed- 
ed to undertake the manufacture of the pumps, pipes, &c., 
required for its construction ; and, remembering his friend 
the Yorkshire blacksmith, who had rcftide his first tools for 



JOSEPH BEAM AH. 231 

him out of the old files and razor-blades, he sent for him 
to London to take charge of his blacksmith's department, 
in which he proved a most useful assistant. As usual, 
the patent was attacked by pirates so soon as it became 
productive, and Bramah was under the necessity, on more 
than one occasion, of defending his property in the inven- 
tion, in which he was completely successftil. 

We next find Bramah turning his attention to the in- 
vention of a lock that should surpass all others then 
known. The locks then in use were of a very imperfect 
character, easily picked by dexterous thieves, against 
whom they afforded little protection. Yet locks are a 
very ancient invention, though, as in many other cases, 
the art of making them seems in a great measure to have 
become lost, and accordingly had to be found out anew. 
Thus the tumbler lock, — which consists in the use of 
movable impediments acted on by the proper key only, 
as contradistinguished from the ordinary ward locks, 
where the impediments are fixed, — appears to have 
been well-known to the ancient Egyptians, the represen- 
tation of such a lock being found sculptured among the 
bas-reliefs which decorate the great temple at Karnak. 
This kind of lock was revived, or at least greatly im- 
proved, by a Mr. Barron, in 1774, and it was shortly 
after ihis time that Bramah directed his attention to the 
subject. After much study and many experiments, he 
contrived a lock more simple, more serviceable, as well 
as more secure, than Barron's, as is proved by the fact 
that it has stood the test of nearly eighty years' expe- 
rience,* and still holds its ground. For a long time, in- 

* The lock invented by Bramah was patented in 1784. Mr. Bramah 
himself fully set forth the specific merits of the invention in his Dis- 
sertation on the Construction of Locks. In a second patent, taken out 



232 INDUSTEIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

deed, Bramah's lock was regarded as absolutely inviolable, 
and it remained unpicked for sixty-seven years, until 
Hobbs, the American, mastered it in 1851. A notice 
bad long been exhibited in Bramab's shop-window in Pic- 
cadilly, offering 200/. to any one who should succeed in 
picking the patent lock. Many tried, and all failed, until 
Hobbs succeeded, after sixteen days' manipulation of it 
with various elaborate instruments. But the difficulty 
with which the lock was picked showed that, for all ordi- 
nary purposes, it might be pronounced impregnable. 

The new locks were machines of the most delicate kind, 
the action of which depended in a great measure upon the 
precision with which the springs, sliders, levers, barrels, 
and other parts were finished. The merits of the inven- 
tion being generally admitted, there was a considerable 
demand for the locks, and the necessity thus arose for in- 
venting a series of original machine-tools to enable them 
to be manufactured in sufficient quantities to meet the 
demand. It is probable, indeed, that, but for the contriv- 
ance of such tools, the lock could never have come into 
general use, as the skill of hand- workmen, no matter how 
experienced, could not have been relied upon for turning 

by him in 1798, he amended his first with the object of preventing the 
counterfeiting of keys, and suspending the office of the lock until the 
key was again in the possession of the owner. This he effected by 
enabling the owner so to alter the sliders as to render the lock inac- 
cessible to such key if applied by any other person but himself, or 
until the sliders had been rearranged so as to admit of its proper 
action. We may mention in passing that the security of Bramah's 
locks depends on the doctrine of combinations, or multiplication of 
numbers into each other, which is known to increase in the most rapid 
proportion. Thus, a lock of five slides admits of 3,000 variations, while 
one of eight will have no less than 1,935,360 changes; in other words, 
that number of attempts at making a key, or at picking it, may be 
made before it can be opened. 



JOSEPH BRAMAH. 233 

out the article with that degree of accuracy and finish in 
all the parts which was indispensable for its proper action. 
In conducting the manufacture throughout, Bramah was 
greatly assisted by Henry Maudslay, his foreman, to whom 
he was in no small degree indebted for the contrivance 
of those tool-machines which enabled him to carry on the 
business of lock-making with advantage and profit. 

Bramah's indefatigable spirit of invention was only 
stimulated to fresh efibrls by the success of his lock ; and 
in the course of a few years we find him entering upon a 
more important and original line of action than he had 
yet ventured on. His patent of 1785 shows the direction 
of his studies. Watt had invented his steam-engine, 
which was coming into general use ; and the creation of 
motive-power in various other forms became a favorite 
subject of inquiry with inventors. Bramah's first inven- 
tion with this object was his hydrostatic machine, founded 
on the doctrine of the equilibrium of pressure in fluids, as 
exhibited in the well-known " hydrostatic paradox." In 
his patent of 1785, in which he no longer describes him- 
self as " Cabinet-maker," but " Engine-maker " of Picca- 
dilly, he indicated many inventions, though none of them 
came into practical use, — such as a hydrostatical machine 
and boiler, and the application of the power produced by 
them to the drawing of carriages, and the propelling of 
ships by a paddle-wheel fixed in the stern of the vessel, 
of which drawings are annexed to the specification ; but 
it was not until 1795 that he patented his hydrostatic or 
hydraulic press. 

Though the principle on which the hydraulic-press is 
founded had long been known, and formed the subject of 
much curious speculation, it remained unproductive of 
results untU a comparatively recent period, when the idea 



234 INDUSTRIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

occurred of applying it to mechanical purposes. A ma- 
chine of the kind was indeed proposed by Pascal, the 
eminent pliilosopher, in 1664, but more than a century 
elapsed before the difficulties in the way of its construc- 
tion were satisfactorily overcome. Bramah's machine 
consists of a large and massive cylinder, in which there 
works an accurately-fitted solid piston or plunger. A 
forcing-pump of very small bore communicates with the 
bottom of the cylinder, and by the action of the pump- 
handle or lever, exceeding small quantities of water are 
forced in succession beneath the piston in the large cylin- 
der, thus gradually raising it up, and compressing bodies 
whose bulk or volume it is intended to reduce. Hence it 
is most commonly used as a packing -press, being superior 
to every other contrivance of the kind that has yet been 
invented ; and though exercising a prodigious force, it is 
so easily managed that a boy can work it. The machine 
has been employed on many extraordinary occasions in 
preference to other methods of applying power. Thus 
Robert Stephenson used it to hoist the gigantic tubes of 
the Britannia Bridge into their bed,* and Brunei to launch 
the Great Eastern steamship from her cradles. It has 
also been used to cut bars of iron, to draw the piles driven 
in forming coffer dams, and to wrench up trees by the 
roots, aU of wliich feats it accomplishes with comparative 
ease. 

The principal difficulty experienced in constructing the 
hydraulic-press before the time of Bramah arose from the 
tremendous pressure exercised by the pump, which forced 
the water through between the solid piston and the side 
of the cylinder in which it worked in such quantities as to 

* The weight raised by a single press at the Britannia Bridge was 
1,144 tons. 



JOSEPH BRAMAH. 235 

render the press useless for practical purposes. Bramah 
himself was at first completely baffled by this difficulty. 
It will be observed, that the problem was to secure a joint 
sufficiently free to let the piston slide up through it, and 
at the same time so water-tight as to withstand the inter- 
nal force of the piunp. These two conditions seemed so 
conflicting that Bramah was almost at his wit's end, and 
for a time despaired of being able to bring the machine to 
a state of practical efficiency. None but those who have 
occupied themselves in the laborious and often profitless 
task of helping the world to new and useful macliines, can 
have any idea of the tantalizing anxiety which arises from 
the apparently petty stumbling-blocks, which, for a while, 
impede the realization of a great idea in mechanical in- 
vention. Such was the case with the water-tight arrange- 
ment in the hydraulic-press. In his early experiments, 
Bramah tried the expedient of the ordinary stuffing-box 
for the purpose of securing the required water-tightness. 
That is, a coil of hemp on leather washers was placed in 
a recess, so as to fit tightly round the moving ram or 
piston, and it was further held in its place by means of a 
compressing collar forced hard down by strong screws. 
The defect of this arrangement was, that, even supposing 
the packing could be made sufficiently tight to resist the 
passage of the water urged by the tremendous pressure 
from beneath, such was the grip which the compressed 
material took of the ram of the press, that it could not be 
got to return down after the water pressure had been 
removed. 

In this dilemma, Bramah's ever-ready workman, Henry 
Maudslay, came to his rescue. The happy idea occurred 
to him of employing the pressure of the water itself to 
give the requisite water-tightness to the collar. It was a 



236 INDUSTEIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

flash of common-sense genius, — beautiful through its very 
simplicity. The result was Maudslay's self-tightening 
collar, the action of which a few words of description will 
render easily intelligible. A collar of sound leather, the 
convex side upwards and the concave downwards, was 
fitted into the recess turned out in the neck of the press- 
cylinder, at the place formerly used as a stuffing-box. Im- 
mediately on the high-pressure water being turned on, it 
forced its way into the leathern concavity, and " flapped 
out " the bent edges of the collar ; and, in so doing, caused 
the leather to apply itself to the surface of the rising ram, 
with a degree of closeness and tightness so as to seal up 
the joint the closer, exactly in proportion to the pressure 
of the water in its tendency to escape. On the other 
hand, the moment the pressure was let off and the ram 
desired to return, the collar collapsed and the ram slid 
gently down, perfectly free, and yet perfectly water-tight. 
Thus, the former tendency of the water to escape by the 
side of the piston was by this most simple and elegant 
self-adjusting contrivance made instrumental to the per- 
fectly efficient action of the machine ; and from the mo- 
ment of its invention the hydraulic-press took its place as 
one of the grandest agents for exercising power in a con- 
centrated and tranquil form. 

Bramah continued his useful labors as an inventor for 
many years. His study of the principles of hydrauhcs, 
in the course of his invention of the press, enabled him to 
introduce many valuable improvements in pumping-ma- 
chinery. By varying the form of the piston and cylinder 
he was enabled to obtain a rotary motion,* which he ad- 

* Dr. Thomas Young, in his article on Bramah in the Encydopcedia: 
Britannica, describes the " rotative principle " as consisting in making 
the part which acts immediately on the water in the form of a slider, 



JOSEPH BEAMAH. 237 

vantageously applied to many purposes. Thus he adopted 
it in the well-known fire-engine, the use of which has 
almost become universal. Another popular machine of 
his is the beer-pump, patented in 1797, by which the pub- 
lican is enabled to raise from the casks in the cellar be- 
neath the various liquors sold by him over the counter. 
He also took out several patents for the improvement of 
the steam-engine, in which, however,' Watt left little room 
for other inventors ; and hence Bramah seems to have 
entertained a grudge against Watt, which broke out 
fiercely in the evidence given by him in the case of Boul- 
ton and Watt versus Hornblower and Maberly, tried in 
December, 1796. On that occasion his temper seems to 
have got the better of his judgment, and he was cut short 
by the judge in the attempt which he then made to submit 
the contents of the pamphlet subsequently published by 
him in the form of a letter to the judge before whom the 
case was tried.* In that pamphlet he argued that Watt's 
specification had no definite meaning ; that it was incon- 
sistent and absurd, and could not possibly be understood ; 
that the proposal to work steam-engines on the principle 
of condensation was entirely fallacious ; that Watt's 
method of packing the piston was "monstrous stupid- 
ity"; that the engines of Newcomen (since entirely su- 
perseded) were infinitely superior, in all respects, to 

sweeping round a cylindrical cavity, and kept in its place by means 
of an eccentric groove ; a contrivance which was probably Bramah's 
own invention, but which had been before described, in a form nearly 
similar, by Eamelli, Canalleri, Amontons, Prince Rupert, and Dr. 
Hooke. 

* A Letter to the Right Hon. Sir James Eyre, Lord Chief Justice of 
the Common Pleas, on the subject of the cause Boulton and Watt v. Horn- 
blower and Maberly, for Infringement on Mr. WatVs Patent for an 
Improvement of the Stham-Engine. By Joseph Bramah, Engineer. 
London, 1797. 



238 INDUSTEIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

those of "Watt ; — conclusions whicli, we need scarcely 
say, have been refuted by the experience of nearly a 
century. 

On the expiry of Boulton and Watt's patent, Bramah 
introduced several valuable improvements in the details 
of the condensing engine, which had by that time become 
an established power, — the most important of which was 
his " four-way cock," which he so arranged as to revolve 
continuously instead of alternately, thus insuring greater 
precision with considerably less wear of parts. In the 
same patent by which he secured this invention in 1801, 
he also proposed sundry improvements in the boilers, as 
well as modifications in various parts of the engine, with 
the object of effecting greater simplicity and directness of 
action. 

In his patent of 1802, we find Bramah making another 
great stride in mechanical invention, in his tools " for pro- 
ducing straight, smooth, and parallel surfaces on.wood and 
other materials requiring truth, in a manner much more 
expeditious and perfect than can be performed by the use 
of axes, saws, planes, and other cutting instruments used 
by hand in the ordinary way." The specification de- 
scribes the object of the invention to be the saving of 
manual labor, the reduction in the cost of production, and 
the superior character of the work executed. The tools 
were fixed on frames driven by machinery, some moving 
in a rotary direction- round an upright shaft, some with 
the shaft horizontal, like an ordinary wood-turning lathe, 
while in others the tools were fixed on frames sliding in 
stationary grooves. A wood-planing machine * was con- 

* Sir Samuel Bentham and Marc Isambard Brunei subsequently 
distinguished themselves by the invention of wood-working machinery, 
full accounts of which will be found in the Memoirs of the former by 
Lady Bentham, and in the Life of the latter by Mr. Beamish. 



JOSEPH BRAMAH. 239 

structed on the principle of this invention at "Woolwich 
Arsenal, where it still continues in efficient use. The 
axis of the principal shaft was supported on a piston in a 
vessel of oil, which considerably diminished the friction, 
and it was so contrived as to be accurately regulated by 
means of a small forcing-pump. Although the machinery 
described in the patent was first applied to working on 
wood, it was equally applicable to working on metals ; 
and in his own shops at Pimlico, Bramah employed a 
machine with revolving cutters to plane metallic surfaces 
for his patent-locks and other articles. He also intro- 
duced a method of turning spherical surfaces, either con- 
vex or concave, by a tool movable on an axis perpen- 
dicular to that of the lathe ; and of cutting out concen- 
tric shells by fixing in a similar manner a curved tool of 
nearly the same form as that employed by common turners 
for making bowls. " In fact," says Mr. Mallet, " Bramah 
not only anticipated, but carried out upon a tolerably 
large scale in his own works, — for the construction of 
the patent hydraulic-press, the water-closet, and his locks, 
— a surprisingly large proportion of our modern tools." * 
His remarkable predilection in favor of the use of hy- 
draulic arrangements is displayed in his specification of 
the surface-planing machinery, which includes a method 
of running pivots entirely on a fluid, and raising and de- 
pressing them at pleasure by means of a small forcing- 
pump and stop-cock, — though we are not aware that any 
practical use has ever been made of this part of the in- 
vention. 

Bramah's inventive genius displayed itself alike in 
small things as in great, — in a tap wherewith to di'aw 

* " Record of the International Exhibition, 1862." Practical Me- 
chanic's Journal, 293. 



240 INDUSTRIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

a glass of beer, and in a hydraulic machine capable of 
tearing up a tree by the roots. His powers of contriv- 
ance seemed inexhaustible, and were exercised on the 
most various subjects. When any difficulty occurred 
which mechanical ingenuity was calculated to remove, 
recourse was usually had to Bramah, and he was rarely 
found at a loss for a contrivance to overcome it. Thus, 
when applied to by the Bank of England, in 1806, to con- 
struct a machine for more accurately and expeditiously 
printing the numbers and date lines on bank-notes, he at 
once proceeded to invent the requisite model, which he 
completed in the course of a month. He subsequently 
brought it to great perfection, — the figures in numerical 
succession being changed by the action of the machine 
itself, — and it still continues in regular use. Its em- 
ployment in the Bank of England alone saved the labor 
of a hundred clerks ; but its chief value consisted in its 
greater accuracy, the perfect legibility of ithe figures 
printed by it, and the greatly improved check which it 
affiDrded. 

We next find him occupying himself with inventions 
connected with the manufacture of pens and paper. His 
little pen-making machine for readily making quill pens 
long continued in use, until driven out by the invention 
of the steel pen ; but his patent for making paper by ma- • 
chinery, though ingenious, like everything he did, does not 
seem to have been adopted, the inventions of Fourdrinier 
and Donkin, in this direction, having shortly superseded 
all others. Among his other minor inventions may be 
mentioned his improved method of constructing and 
sledging carriage-wheels, and his improved method of 
laying water-pipes. In his specification of the last-men- 
tioned invention, he included the application of water- 



JOSEPH BEAMAH. 241 

power to the driving of machinery of every description, 
and for hoisting and lowering goods in docks and ware- 
houses, — since carried out in practice, though in a dif- 
ferent manner, by Sir William Armstrong.* In this, as 
in many other matters, Bramah shot ahead of the me- 

* In this, as in other methods of employing power, the moderns had 
been anticipated by the ancients ; and though hydraulic machinery is 
a comparatively recent invention in England, it had long been in use 
abroad. Thus we find in Dr. Bright's Travels in Lower Hungary a 
full description of the powerful hydraulic machinery invented by M. 
Holl, Chief Engineer of the Imperial Mines, which had been in use since 
the year 1749, in pumping water from a depth of 1800 feet, from the 
silver and gold mines of Schemnitz and Kremnitz. A head of water 
was collected by forming a reservoir along the mountain side, from 
which it was conducted through water-tight cast-iron pipes erected 
perpendicularly in the mine-shaft. About forty-five fathoms down, 
the water descending through the pipe was forced by the weight of 
the column above it into the bottom of a perpendicular cylinder, in 
which it raised a water-tight piston- When forced up to a given point 
a self-acting stop-cock shut off the pressure of the descending column, 
while a self-acting valve enabled the water contained in the cylinder 
to be discharged, on which the piston again descended, and the process 
was repeated like the successive strokes of a steam-engine. Pump- 
rods were attached to this hydraulic apparatus, which were carried to 
the bottom of the shaft, and each worked a pump at different levels, 
raising the water stage by stage to the level of the main adit. The 
pumps of these three several stages each raised 1790 cubic feet of 
water from a depth of 600 feet in the hour. The regular working of 
the machinery was aided by the employment of a balance-beam con- 
nected by a chain with the head of the large piston and pump-rods ; 
and the whole, of these powerful machines — by means of three of 
which as much as 789,840 gallons of water were pumped out of the 
mines every twenty-four hours — were set in operation and regulated 
merely by the turning of a stop-cock. It will be observed that the 
arrangement thus briefly described was equally applicable to the 
working of machinery of all kinds, cranes, &c., as well as pumps; 
and it will be noted that, notwithstanding the ingenuity of Bramah, 
Armstrongs and other eminent English mechanics, the Austrian en- 
gineer Hbll was thus decidedly beforehand with them in the practical 
application of the principles of hydrostatics. 

11 P 



242 INDUSTRIAL BIOGEAPHY. 

chanical necessities of his time ; and hence many of his 
patents (of which he held at one time more than twenty) 
proved altogether profitless. His last patent, taken out 
in 1814, was for the application of Roman cement to 
timber for the purpose of preventing dry-rot. 

Besides his various mechanical pursuits, Bramah also 
followed to a certain extent the profession of a civil en- 
gineer, though his more urgent engagements rendered it 
necessary for him to refuse many advantageous offers of 
employment in this line. He was, however, led to carry 
out the new water-works at Norwich, between the years 
1790 and 1793, in consequence of his having been called 
upon to give evidence in a dispute between the corpora- 
tion of that city and the lessees, in the course of which he 
propounded plans which, it was alleged, could not be car- 
ried out. To prove that they could be carried out, and 
that his evidence was correct, he undertook the new 
works, and executed them with complete success ; be- 
sides demonstrating in a spirited publication, elicited by 
the controversy, the insufficiency and incongruity of the 
plans which had been submitted by the rival engineer. 

For some time prior to his death, Bramah had been 
employed in the erection of several large machines in his 
works at Pimlico for sawing stones and timber, to which 
he applied his hydraulic power with great success. New 
methods of building bridges and canal-locks, with a variety 
of other matters, were in an embryo state in his mind, 
but he did not Uve to complete them. He was occupied 
in superintending the action of his hydrostatic-press at 
Holt Forest, in Hants, — where upwards of three hundred 
trees of the largest dimensions were in a very short time 
torn up by the roots, — when he caught a severe cold, which 
settled upon his lungs, and his life was suddenly brought 



JOSEPH BEAMAH. 243 

to a close on tlie 9th of December, 1814, in his 66th 
year. 

His friend, Dr. CuUen Brown,* has said of him, that 
Bramah was a man of excellent moral character, temperate 
in his habits, of a pious turn of mind,t and so cheerful in 

* Dr. Brown published a brief memoir of his friend in the New 
Monthly Magazine for April, 1815, which has been the foundation of 
all the notices of Bramah's life that have heretofore appeared. 

t Notwithstanding his well-known religious character, Bramah 
seems to have fallen under the grievous displeasure of William 
Huntington, S. S. (Sinner Saved), described by Macaulay in his 
youth as " a worthless, ugly lad of the name of Hunter," and in his 
manhood as "that remarkable impostor." {Essays, 1 vol. ed. 529.) It 
seems that Huntington sought the professional services of Bramah 
when re-edifying his chapel in 1793 ; and at the conclusion of the 
work, the engineer generously sent the preacher a check for 81. to- 
wards defraying the necessary expenses. Whether the sum was less 
than Huntington expected, or from whatever cause, the S. S. con- 
temptuously flung back the gift, as proceeding from an Arian whose 
religion was " unsavoury," at the same time hurling at the giver a 
number of texts conveying epithets of an offensive character. Bramah 
replied to the farrago of nonsense, which he characterized as " unman- 
nerly, absurd, and illiterate," — that it must have been composed when 
the writer was " intoxicated, mad, or under the influence of Lucifer," 
and he threatened that unless Huntington apologized for his gratuitous 
insults, he (Bramah) would assuredly expose him. The mechanician 
nevertheless proceeded gravely to explain and defend his " profession 
of faith," which was altogether unnecessary. On this Huntington 
returned to the charge, and directed against the mechanic a fresh 
volley of Scripture texts and phraseology, not without humor, if pro- 
fanity be allowable in controversy, as where he says : " Poor man ! he 
makes a good patent-lock, but cuts a sad figure with the keys of the 
Kingdom of Heaven ! " " What Mr. Bramah is," says S. S., " in re- 
spect to his character or conduct in life, as a man, a tradesman, a 
neighbor, a gentleman, a husband, friend, master, or subject, I know 
not. In all these characters he may shine as a comet for aught I 
know; but he appears to me to be as far from any resemblance to a 
poor penitent or broken-hearted sinner as Jannes, Jambres, or Alexan- 
der the coppersmith! " Bramah rejoined by threatening to publish 
his assailant's letters, but Huntington anticipated him in A Feeble 



244 INDUSTRIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

temperament, tliat lie was the life of every company into 
which he entered. To much facility of expression he 
added the most perfect independence of opinion ; he was 
a benevolent and affectionate man ; neat and methodical 
in his habits, and knew well how to temper liberality with 
economy. Greatly to his honor, he often kept his work- 
men employed, solely for their sake, when stagnation of 
trade prevented liim disposing of the products of their 
labor. As a manufacturer, he was distinguished for his 
promptitude and probity, and he was celebrated for the 
exquisite finish which he gave to all his productions. In 
this excellence of workmanship, which he was the first to 
introduce, he continued, while he lived, to be unrivalled. 

Bramah was deservedly honored and admired as the 
first mechanical genius of his time, and as the founder of 
the art of tool-making in its highest branches. From his 
shops at Pimlico came Henry Maudslay, Joseph Clement, 
and many more fii'st-class mechanics, who carried the 
mechanical arts to still higher perfection, and gave an 
impulse to mechanical engineering, the effects of which 
are still felt in every branch of industry. 

The parish to which Bramah belonged was naturally 
proud of the distinction he had achieved in the world, and 
commemorated his life and career by a marble tablet 
erected by subscription to his memory, in the parish 
church of Silkstone. In the churchyard are found the 
tombstones of Joseph's father, brother, and other members 
of the family; and we are informed that their descendants 
still occupy the farm at Stainborough on which the great 
mechanician was born. 

Dispute with a Wise and Learned Man, 8vo, London, 1793, in which, 
whether justly or not, Huntington makes Bramah appear to murder 
tha king's English in the most barbarous manner. 



CHAPTER XII. 

Henry Maud slat. 



" The successful construction of all machinery depends on the perfection of the 
tools employed ; and whoever is a master in the arts of tool-making possesses the 

key to the construction of all machines The contrivance and construction 

of tools must therefore ever stand at the head of the industrial arts." — C. Bab- 
BAGE, Exposition o/1851. 



Henry Maudslay was born at "Woolwich towards the 
end of last century, in a house standing in the court at 
the back of the Salutation Inn, the entrance to which is 
nearly opposite the Arsenal gates. His father was a 
native of Lancashire, descended from an old family of the 
same name, the head of which resided at Mawdsley Hall, 
near Ormskirk, at the beginning of the seventeenth cen- 
tury. The family were afterwards scattered, and several 
of its members became workmen. "William Maudslay, 
the father of Henry, belonged to the neighbor]jood of 
Bolton, where he was brought up to the trade of a joiner. 
His- principal employment, while working at his trade in 
Lancashire, consisted in making the wood framing of cot- 
ton machinery, in the construction of which cast-iron had 
not yet been introduced. Having got into some trouble 
in his neighborhood, through some alleged liaison, Wil- 
liam enlisted in the Royal Artillery, and the corps to 
which he belonged was shortly after sent out to the "West 
Indies. He was several times engaged in battle, and in 
his last action he was hit by a musket-buUet in the throat. 



246 INDUSTRIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

The soldier's stock which he wore had a piece cut out 
of it by the ball, the direction of which was diverted, 
and though severely wounded, his life was saved. He 
brought home the stock and preserved it as a relic, after- 
wards leaving it to his son. Long after, the son would 
point to the stock, hung up against his wall, and say, " But 
for that bit of leather there would have been no Henry 
Maudslay." The wounded artilleryman was invahded 
and sent home to Woolwich, the head-quarters of his 
corps, where he was shortly after discharged. Bemg a 
handy workman, he sought and obtained employment at 
the Arsenal. He was afterwards appointed a storekeeper 
in the dockyard. It was during the former stage of 
William Maudslay's employment at Woolwich that the 
subject of this memoir was born in the house in the court 
above mentioned, on the 22d of August, 1771. 

The boy was early set*to work. When twelve years 
old he was employed as a " powder-monkey," in making 
and filling cartridges. After two years, he was passed 
on to the carpenter's shop, where his father worked, and 
there he became acquainted with tools and the art of 
working in wood and iron. From the first, the latter 
seems ^o have had by far the greatest charms for him. 
The blacksmiths' shop was close to the carpenters', and 
Harry seized every opportunity that offered of plying the 
hammer, the file, and the chisel, in preference to the saw 
and the plane. Many a cuff did the foreman of carpen- 
ters give him for absenting himself from his proper shop 
and stealing off to the smithy. His propensity was in- 
deed so strong that, at the end of a year, it was thought 
better, as he was a handy, clever boy, to yield to his 
earnest desire to be placed in the smithy, and he was 
removed thither, accordingly, in his fifteenth year. 



HENRY MAUDSLAY. 247 

His heart being now in his work, he made rapid pro- 
gress, and soon became an expert smith and metal worker. 
He displayed his skill especially in forging light iron- 
work ; and a favorite job of his was the making of 
" Trivets " out of the solid, which only the " dab hands " 
of the shop could do, but which he threw off with great 
rapidity in first-rate style. These " Trivets " were made 
out of Spanish iron bolts, — rare stuff, which, though 
exceedingly tough, forged like wax under the hammer. 
Even at the close of his life, when he had acquired emi- 
nent distinction as an inventor, and was a large employer 
of skilled labor, he looked back with pride to the forging 
of Ms early days in Woolwich Arsenal. He used to de- 
scribe with much gusto, how the old, experienced hands, 
with whom he was a great favorite, would crowd about 
him when forging his " Trivets," some of which may to 
this day be in use among "Woolwich housewives for sup- 
porting the toast-plate before the bright fire against tea 
time. This was, however, entirely contraband work, done 
" on the sly," and strictly prohibited by the superintend- 
ing officer, who used kindly to signal his approach by 
blowing his nose in a peculiar manner, so that aU forbid- 
den jobs might be put out of the way by the time he 
entered the shop. 

We have referred to Maudslay's early dexterity in 
trivet-making — a circumstance trifling enough in itself — 
for the purpose of illustrating the progress which he had 
made in a branch of his art of the greatest importance in 
tool and machine making. Nothing pleased him more in 
his after life than to be set to work upon an unusual piece 
of forging, and to overcome, as none could do so cleverly 
as he, the difficulties which it presented. The pride of 
art was as strong in him as it must have been in the 



248 INDUSTEIAL BIOGEAPHY. 

mediasval smiths, who turned out those beautiful pieces 
of workmanship, still regarded as the pride of our cathe- 
drals and old mansions. In Maudslay's case, his dex- 
terity as a smith was eventually directed to machinery, 
rather than ornamental work ; though, had the latter 
been his line of labor, we do not doubt that he would 
have reached the highest distinction. 

The manual skill which our young blacksmith had 
acquired was such as to give him considerable reputation 
in his craft, and he was spoken of even in the London 
shops as one of the most dexterous hands in the trade. 
It was this circumstance that shortly after led to his 
removal from the smithy in Woolwich Arsenal to a 
sphere more suitable for the development of his me- 
chanical ability. We have already stated, in the preced- 
ing memoir, that Joseph Bramah took out the first patent 
for his lock in 1784, and a second for its improvement 
several years later ; but notwithstanding the acknovvl- 
edged superiority of the new lock over all others, Bra- 
mah experienced the greatest difficulty in getting it 
manufactured with sufficient precision, and at such a 
price as to render it an article of extensive commerce. 
This arose from the generally inferior character of the 
workmanship of that day, as well as the clumsiness and 
uncertainty of the tools then in use. Bramah found that 
even the best manual dexterity was not to be trusted, and 
yet it seemed to be his only resource ; for machine-tools 
of a superior kind had not yet been invented. In this 
dilemma he determined to consult an ingenious old Ger- 
man artisan, then working with William Moodie, a general 
blacksmith in Whitechapel. This German was reckoned 
one of the most ingenious workmen in London at the 
time. Bramah had several long interviews with him, 



HENRY MAUDSLAY. 249 

with the object of endeavoring to solve the difficult prob- 
lem of how to secure precise workmanship in lock-making. 
But they could not solve it ; they saw that without better 
tools the difficulty was insuperable ; and then Bramali 
began to fear that his lock would remain a mere mechan- 
ical curiosity, and be prevented from coming into gen- 
eral use. 

He was indeed sorely puzzled what next to do, when 
one of the hammermen in Moodie's shop ventured to sug- 
gest that there was a young man in the Woolwich Arse- 
nal smithy, named Maudslay, who was so ingenious in 
such matters that " nothing bet him," and he recommended 
that Mr. B ram ah should have a talk with him upon the 
subject of his difficulty. Maudslay was at once sent for 
to Bramah's workshop, and appeared before the lock- 
maker, a tall, strong, comely young fellow, then only 
eighteen years old. Bramah was almost ashamed to lay 
his case before such a mere youth ; but necessity con- 
strained him to try all methods of accomplishing his ob- 
ject, and Maudslay's suggestions in reply to his state- 
ment of the case were so modest, so sensible, and as the 
residt proved, so practical, that the master was constrained 
to admit that the lad before him had an old head though 
set on young shoulders. Bramah decided to adopt the 
youth's suggestions, made him a present on the spot, and 
offered to give him a job if he was willing to come and 
work in a town shop. Maudslay gladly accepted the 
offer, and in due time appeared before Bramah to enter 
upon his duties. 

As Maudslay had served no regular apprenticeship, and 
was of a very youthful appearance, the foreman of the 
shop had considerable doubts as to his ability to take 
rank alongside his experienced hands. But Maudslay 



250 INDUSTRIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

soon set his master's and the foreman's mind at rest. 
Pointing to a worn-out vice-bench, he said to Bramah, 
" Perhaps if I can made that as good as new by six 
o'clock to-night, it will satisfy your foreman that I am 
entitled to rank as a tradesman and take my place among 
your men, even though I have not served a seven years* 
apprenticeship." There was so much self-reliant ability 
in the proposal, Avhich was moreover so reasonable, that it 
was at once acceded to. Off went Maudslay's coat, up 
went his shu-t-sleeves, and to work he set with a will up- 
on the old bench. The vice-jaws were re-steeled " in no 
time," filed up, re-cut, all the parts cleaned and made trim, 
and set into form again. By six o'clock, the old vice was 
screwed up to its place, its jaws were hardened and " let 
down " to proper temper, and the old bench was made to 
look so smart and neat that it threw all the neighboring 
benches into the shade ! Bramah and his foreman came 
round to see it, while the men of the shop looked admir- 
ingly on. It was examined and pronounced " a first-rate 
job." Tliis diploma-piece of work secured Maudslay's 
footing, and next Monday morning he came on as one of 
the regular hands. 

He soon took rank in the shop as a first-class work- 
man. Loving his art, he aimed at excellence in it, and 
succeeded. For it must be understood, that the handi- 
craftsman whose heart is in his calling, feels as much 
honest pride in turning out a piece of thoroughly good 
workmanship, as the sculptor or the painter does in exe- 
cuting a statue or a picture. In course of time, the most 
difficult and delicate jobs came to be intrusted to Maud- 
slay ; and nothing gave him greater pleasure than to be 
set to work upon an entirely new piece of machinery. 
And thus he rose, natm-ally and steadily, from hand to 



HENRY MAUDSLAY. 251 

head work. For his manual dexterity was the least of 
his gifts. He possessed an intuitive power of mechanical 
analysis and synthesis. He had a quick eye to perceive 
the arrangements requisite to effect given purposes ; and 
whenever a difficulty arose, his inventive mind set to 
work to overcome it. 

His feUow-workmen were not slow to recognize his 
many admirable quahties of hand, mind, and heart ; and 
he became not only the favorite, but the hero of the shop. 
Perhaps he owed something to his fine personal appear- 
ance. Hence on gala-days, when the men turned out in 
procession, " Harry " was usually selected to march at 
their head and carry the flag. His conduct as a son, 
also, was as admirable as his qualities as a workman. 
His father dying shortly after Maudslay entered Bra- 
mah's concern, he was accustomed to walk down to Wool- 
wich every Saturday night, and hand over to his mother, 
for whom he had the tenderest regard, a considerable 
share of his week's wages, and this he continued to do 
as long as she lived. 

Notwithstanding his youth, he was raised fi-om one 
post to another, until he was appointed, by unanimous 
consent, the head foreman of the works ; and was recog- 
nized by all who had occasion to do business there as 
" Bramah's right-hand man." He not only won the 
heart of his master, but — what proved of far greater 
importance to him — he also won the heart of his mas- 
ter's pretty housemaid, Sarah Tindel by name, whom he 
married, and she went hand-in-hand with him through 
life, an admii'able " help meet," in every way worthy of 
the noble character of the great mechanic. 

Maudslay was found especially useful by his master in 
devising the tools for making his patent-locks ; and many 



252 INDUSTRIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

were the beautiful contrivances wlpch he invented for the 
purpose of insuring their more accurate and speedy man- 
ufacture, with a minimum degree of labor, and without 
the need of any large amount of manual dexterity on the 
part of the workman. The lock was so delicate a ma- 
chine, that the identity of the several parts of which it 
was composed was found to be an absolute necessity. 
Mere handicraft, however skilled, could not secure the 
requisite precision of workmanship ; nor could the parts 
be turned out in sufficient quantity to meet any large de- 
mand. It was therefore requisite to devise machine-tools 
which should not blunder, nor turn out imperfect work ; 
— machines, in short, which should be in a great measure 
independent of the want of dexterity of individual work- 
men, but which should unerringly labor in their prescribed 
track, and do the work set them, even in the minutest de- 
tails, after the methods designed by their inventor. In 
this department Maudslay was eminently successful, and 
to his laborious ingenuity, as first displayed in Bramah's 
workshops, and afterwards in his own establishment, we 
unquestionably owe much of the power and accuracy of 
our present self-acting machines. 

Bramah himself was not backward in admitting that to 
Henry Maudslay's practical skill in contriving the ma- 
chines for manufacturing his locks on a large scale, the 
success of his invention was in a great degree attributa- 
ble. In further proof of his manual dexterity, it may be 
mentioned that he constructed with his own hands the 
identical padlock which so severely tested the powers of 
Mr. Hobbs in 1851. And when it is considered that the 
lock had been made for more than half a century, and 
did not embody any of the modern improvements, it will 
perhaps be regarded not only as creditable to the princi- 



HENRY MAUDSLAY. 253 

pies on wliicTi it was constructed, but to the workmansiip 
of its maker, that it should so long have withstood the 
various mechanical dexterity to which it was exposed. 

Besides the invention of improved machine-tools for the 
manufacture of locks, Maudslay was of further service to 
Bramah in applying the expedient to his famous hydrau- 
lic-press, without which it would probably have remained 
an impracticable though a highly ingenious macliine. As 
in other instances of great inventions, the practical success 
of the whole is often found to depend upon the action of 
some apparently trifling detail. This was especially the 
case with the hydrauhc-press ; to which Maudslay added 
the essential feature of the self-tightening collar, above 
described in the memoir of Bramah, Mr. James Nasmyth 
is our authority for ascribing tliis invention to Maudslay, 
who was certainly quite competent to have made it ; and 
it is a matter of fact that Bramah's specification of the 
press says nothing of the hollow collar,* on which its 
efficient action mainly depends. Mr. Nasmyth says : 
" Maudslay himself told me, or led me to believe, that it 
was he who invented the self-tightening collar for the 
hydraulic-press, without which it would never have been 
a serviceable machine. As the self-tightening collar is 
to the hydraulic-press, so is the steam-blast to the loco- 
motive. It is the one thing needful that has made it 
effective in practice. If Maudslay was the inventor of 
the coUar, that one contrivance ought to immortalize him. 
He used to tell me of it with great gusto, and I have no 

* The -words Bramah uses in describing this part of his patent of 
1795 are these: " The piston must be made perfectly water-tight by 
leather or other materials, as used in pump-making." He elsewhere 
speaks of the piston-rod " working through the stuffing-box." But in 
practice, as we have above shown, these methods were found to be 
altogether inefficient. 



254 INDUSTRIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

reason to doubt the correctness of his statement." Who- 
ever really struck out the idea of the collar displayed the 
instinct of the true inventor, who invariably seeks to 
accomplish his object by the adoption of the simplest 
possible means. 

During the time that Maudslay held the important 
office of manager of Bramah's works his highest wages 
were not more than thirty shillings a week. He himself 
thought that he was worth more to his master, — as in- 
deed he was, — and he felt somewhat mortified that he 
should have to make an application for an advance ; but 
the increasing expenses of his family compelled him in a 
measure to do so. His application was refused in such a 
manner as greatly to hurt his sensitive feelings ; and the 
result was that he threw up his situation, and determined 
to begin working on his own account. 

His first start in business was in the year 1797, in a 
small workshop and smithy situated in Wells Street, Ox- 
ford Street, It was in an awful state of dirt and dilapi- 
dation when he became its tenant. He entered the place 
on a Friday, but by the Saturday evening, with the help 
of his excellent wife, he had the shop thoroughly cleaned, 
whitewashed, and put in readiness for beginning work on 
the next Monday morning. He had then the pleasure of 
hearing the roar of his own forge-fire, and the cheering 
ring of the hammer on his own anvil ; and great was the 
pride he felt in standing for the fibi-st time within his own 
smithy and executing orders for customers on his own 
account. His first customer was an artist, who gave him 
an order to execute the iron-work of a large easel, 
embodying some new arrangements ; and the work was 
punctually done to his employer's satisfaction. Other or- 
ders followed, and he soon became fully employed. His 



HENEY MAUDSLAY. 255 

fame as a first-rate workman was almost as great as that 
of his former master ; and many who had been accustomed 
to do business with him at Pimhco followed him to WeUs 
Street. Long years after, the thought of these early days 
of self-dependence and hard work used to set him in a 
glow, and he would dilate to his intimate friends upon 
liis early struggles and his first successes, which were 
much more highly prized by him than those of his ma- 
turer years. 

With a true love of his craft, Maudslay continued 
to apply himself, as he had done whilst working as 
Bramah's foreman, to the best methods of insuring accu- 
racy and finish of work, so as in a measure to be inde- 
pendent of the carelessness or want of dexterity of the 
workman. With this object he aimed at the contrivance 
of improved machine-tools, which should be as much self- 
acting and self-regulating as possible ; and it was while 
pursuing this study that he wrought out the important 
mechanical invention with which his name is usually 
identified, — that of the Slide-Eest. It continued to be 
his special delight, when engaged in the execution of any 
piece of work in which he took a personal interest, to in- 
troduce a system of identity of parts, and to adapt for the 
pm-pose some one or other of the mechanical contrivances 
with which his fertile brain was always teeming. Thus 
it was from his desire to leave nothing to the chance of 
mere individual dexterity of hand, that he introduced the 
slide-rest in the lathe, and rendered it one of the most 
important of machine-tools. The first device of this kind 
was contrived by him for Bramah, in whose shops it con- 
tinued in practical use long after he had begun business 
for himself. " I have seen the slide-rest," says Mr. James 
Nasmyth, " the first that Henry Maudslay made, in use 



256 INDUSTRIAL BIOGRAPHY- 

at Messrs. Bramali's workshops, and in it were all those 
arrangements which are to be found in the most modern 
slide-rest of our own day,* all of which are the legitimate 
offspring of Maudslay's original rest. If this tool be yet 
extant, it ought to be preserved with the greatest care, for 
it was the beginning of those mechanical triumphs which 
give to the days in which we live so much of their distin- 
guishing character." 

A very few words of explanation will serve to illus- 
trate the importance of Maudslay's invention. Every 
person is famihar with the uses of the common turning- 
lathe. It is a favorite machine with amateur mechanics, 
and its employment is indispensable for the execution of 
all kinds of rounded work in wood and metal. Perhaps 
there is no contrivance by which the skill of the handi- 
craftsman has been more effectually aided than by this 
machine. Its origin is lost in the shades of antiquity. 
Its most ancient form was probably the potter's wheel, 
from which it advanced, by successive improvements, to 
its present liighly improved form. It was found that, by 
whatever means a substance capable of being cut could 
be made to revolve with a circular motion round a fixed 
right line as a centre, a cutting tool applied to its surface 
would remove the inequalities so that any part of such 
surface should be equidistant from that centre. Such is 
the fundamental idea of the ordinary turning-lathe. The 
ingenuity and experience of mechanics working such an 
instrument enabled them to add many improvements to 
it ; vmtil the skilful artisan at length produced not mei'ely 

* la this lathe the slide-rest and frame were movable along the 
traversing-bar, according to the length of the work, and could be 
placed in any position, and secured by a handle and screw underneath. 
The Rest, however, afterwards underwent many important modifica- 
tions ; but the principle of the whole machine was there. 



HENRY MAUDSLAY. 257 

circular-turning of the most beautiful and accurate 
description, but exquisite figure-work, and complicated 
geometrical designs, depending upon the cycloidal and 
eccentric movements whicb were from time to time added 
to the machine. 

The artisans of the Middle Ages were very skilful in 
the use of the lathe, and turned out much beautiful screen 
and stall work, stiU to be seen in our cathedrals, as well 
as twisted and swash-work for the balusters of staircases 
and other ornamental purposes. English mechanics seem 
early to have distinguished theinselves as improvers of 
the lathe ; and in Moxon's " Treatise on Tumiug," pub- 
lished in 1680, we find Mr. Thomas Oldfield, at the sign 
of the Flower-de-Luce, near the Savoy in the Strand, 
named as an excellent maker of oval-engines and swash- 
engines, showing that such machines were then in some 
demand. The French writer Plumier * also mentions an 
ingenious modification of the lathe, by means of which any 
kind of reticulated form could be given to the work ; and, 
from its being employed to ornament the handles of 
knives, it was called by him the " Machine a manche de 
Couteau d'Angleterre." But the French artisans were 
at that time much better skilled than the English in the 
use of tools, and it is most probable that we owe to the 
Flemish and French Protestant workmen, who flocked 
into England in such large numbers during, the religious 
persecutions' of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, 
the improvement, if not the introduction, of the art of 
turning, as well as many other arts hereafter to be refer- 
red to. It is certain that at the period to which we refer 
numerous treatises were published in France on the art 
of turning, some of them of a most elaborate character. 

* Plumier, UArt de Tourner, Paris, 1754, p. 155. 

Q 



258 INDUSTRIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

Such were tlie works of De la Hire,* who described how 
all sorts of polygons might be made by the lathe ; De 
la Condamine,t who showed how a lathe could turn all 
sorts of irregular figures by means of tracers ; and of 
Grand Jean,J Morin,§ Plumier, Bergeron, and many 
other writers. 

The work of Plumier is especially elaborate, entering 
into the construction of the lathe in its various parts, the 
making of the tools and cutters, and the difierent motions 
to be given to the machine by means of wheels, eccentrics, 
and other expedients, amongst wliich may be mentioned 
one very much resembling the slide-rest and planing- 
maclune combined. || From this work it appears that 
turning had long been a favorite pursuit in France with 
amateurs of all ranks, who spared no expense in the con- 
trivance and perfection of elaborate machinery for the 
production of complex figures.lT There was at that time 

* Machines approuvees par VAcademie, 1719. 

t Machines approuvees par I'Academie, 1733. 

J Ilnd. 

§ L'Artde Tourner en perfection, 1749. 

II It consisted of two parallel bars of wood or iron, connected together 
at both extremities by bolts or keys, of sufficient width to admit of the 
article required to be planed. A movable frame was placed between 
the two bars, motion being given to it by a long cylindrical thread 
acting on any tool put into the sliding-frame, and, consequently, caus- 
ing the screw, by means of a handle at each end of it, to push or draw 
the point or cutting-edge of the tool either way. — Mr. Geokge Ren- 
nie's Preface to Buchanan's Practical Essays on Mill- Work, 3d ed., 
XLI. 

Tf Turning was a favorite amusement amongst the French nobles 
of last century, many of whom acquired great dexterity in the art, 
which they turned to account when compelled to emigrate at the 
Revolution. Louis XVI. himself was a very good locksmith, and 
could have earned a fair living at the trade. Our own George III. 
was a good turner, and was learned in wheels and treadles, chucks 
and chisels. Henry Mayhew says, on the authority of an old working 



HENRY MAUDSLAY. 259 

a great passion for automata in France, whichi gave rise 
to many highly ingenious devices, such as Camus's min- 
iature carriage (made for Louis XIV. when a child), 
Degennes's mechanical peacock, Vaucanson's duck, and 
Maillardet's conjurer. It had the effect of introducing 
among the higher order of artists habits of nice and 
accurate workmanship in executing delicate pieces of 
machinery ; and the same combination of mechanical 
powers which made the steel-spider crawl, the duck 
quack, or waved the tiny rod of the magician, contributed 
in future years to purposes of higher import, — the wheels 
and pinions, which in these automata almost eluded the 
human senses by their minuteness, reappearing in modern 
times in the stupendous mechanism of our self-acting 
lathes, spinning-mules, and steam-engines. 

" In our own country," says Professor Willis, " the 
Kterature of this subject is so defective that it is very 
difficult to discover what progress we were making during 
the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries." * We believe 
the fact to be, that the progress made in England down 
to the end of last century had been very small indeed, 
and that the lathe had experienced little or no improve- 
ment until Maudslay took it in hand. Nothing seems to 
haA^e been known of the slide-rest untU he reinvented it, 

turner, that, with average industry, the king might have made from 
40s. to 50s. a week as a hard wood and ivory turner. Lord John Hay, 
though one-armed, was an adept at the latter, and Lord Gray was 
another capital turner. Indeed, the late Mr. Holtzapfifel's elaborately 
illustrated treatise was written quite as much for amateurs as for 
working mechanics. Among other noble handicraftsmen we may 
mention the late Lord Douglas, who cultivated bookbinding. Lord 
Traquair's fancy was cutlery, and one could not come to him in a 
more welcome fashion than with a pair of old razors to set up. 

* Professor Willis, Lectures on the Results of the Great Exhibition 
of 1851, 1st series, p. 306. 



260 INDUSTRIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

and applied it to the production of machinery of a far 
more»elaborate character than had ever before been con- 
templated as possible. Professor Willis says that Bi-a- 
mah's — in other words, Maudslay's — slide-rest of 1794 is 
so different from that described in the French " Ency- 
clopedie " in 1772, that the two could not have had a 
common origin. We are, therefore, led to the conclusion 
that Maudslay's invention was entirely independent of all 
that had gone before, and that he contrived it for the 
special purpose of overcoming the difficulties which he 
himself experienced in turning out duplicate parts in 
large numbers. At all events, he was so early and zeal- 
ous a promoter of its use, that we think he may, in the 
eyes of all practical mechanics, stand as the parent of its 
introduction to the workshops of England. 

It is unquestionable that at the time when Maudslay 
began the improvement of machine-tools, the methods of 
working in wood and metals were exceedingly imperfect. 
Mr. William Fairbairn has stated that when he first be- 
came acquainted with mechanical engineering, about sixty 
years ago, there were no self-acting tools ; everything was 
executed by hand. There were neither planing, slotting, 
nor shaping machines ; and the whole stock of an engi- 
neering or machine establishment might be summed up 
in a few Ul-constructed lathes, and a few driUs and boring 
machines of rude construction.* Our mechanics were 
equally backward in contrivances for working in wood. 
Thus, when Sir Samuel Bentham made a tour through 
the manufacturing districts of England in 1791, he was 
surprised to find how little had been done to substitute 
the invariable accuracy of machinery for the uncertain 

* Address delivered before the British Association at Manchester in 
1861 ; and Useful Information for Engineers, 1st Series, p. 22. 



HENRY MAUDSLAY. 261 

dexterity of the human hand. Steam-power was as yet 
only employed in driving spinning-machines, rolling met- 
als, pumping water, and such like purposes. In the 
working of wood no machinery had been introduced be- 
yond the common turning-lathe and some saws, and a 
few boring tools used in making blocks for the navy. 
Even saws worked by inanimate force for slitting timber, 
though in extensive use in foreign countries, were no- 
where to be found in Great Britain.* As everything 
depended on the dexterity of hand and correctness of 
eye of the workmen, the work turned out was of very 
unequal merit, besides being exceedingly costly. Even in 
the construction of comparatively simple machines, the 
expense was so great as to present a formidable obstacle 
to their introduction and extensive use ; and but for the 
invention of machine-making tools, the use of the steam- 
engine in the various forms in which it is now applied 
for the production of power could never have become 
general. 

In turning a piece of work on the old-fashioned lathe, 
the workman applied and guided his tool by means of 
muscular strength. The work was made to revolve, and 
the turner, holding the cutting tool firmly upon the long, 
straight, guiding edge of the rest, along which he carried 
it, and pressing its point firmly against the article to be 
turned, was thus enabled to reduce its surface to the 
required size and shape. Some dexterous turners were 
able, with practice and carefulness, to execute very clever 
pieces of work by this simple means. But when the arti- 
cle to be turned was of considerable size, and especially 
when it was of metal, the expenditure of muscular 
strength was so great that the workman soon became 

* Life of Sir Samuel Bentham, 97, 9S. 



262 INDUSTRIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

exhausted. The slightest variation in the pressure of the 
tool led to an irregularity of surface ; and with the ut- 
most care on the workman's part, he could not avoid 
occasionally cutting a little too deep, in consequence of 
which he must necessarily go over the surface again, to 
reduce the whole to the level of that accidentally cut 
too deep ; and thus, possibly, the job would be altogether 
spoiled by the diameter of the article under operation be- 
ing made too small for its intended purpose. 

The introduction of the slide-rest furnished a complete 
remedy for this source of imperfection. The principle of 
the invention consists in constructing and fitting the I'est 
so that, instead of being screwed down to one place, and 
the tool in the hands of the workman travelling over it, 
the rest shall itself hold the cutting tool firmly fixed in it, 
and slide along the surface of the bench in a direction 
exactly parallel with the axis of the work. Before its 
invention various methods had been tried with the object 
of enabling the work to be turned true independent of the 
dexterity of the workman. Thus, a square, steel cutter 
used to be firmly fixed in a bed, along which it was 
wedged from point to point of the work, and tolerable 
accuracy was in this way secured. But the slide-rest 
was much more easily managed, and the result was much 
more satisfactory. All that the workman had to do, after 
the tool was firmly fitted into the rest, was merely to turn 
a screw-handle, and thus advance the cutter along the 
face of the work as required, with an expenditure of 
strength so slight as scarcely to be appreciable. And 
even this labor has now been got rid of; for, by an ar- 
rangement of the gearing, the shde itself has been made 
self-acting, and advances with the revolution of the work 
in the lathe, which thus supplies the place of the work- 



HENRY MAUDSLAY. 263 

man's hand. The accuracy of the turning done by this 
beautiful yet simple arrangement is as mechanically per- 
fect as work can be. The pair of steel fingers which hold 
the cutting tool firmly in their grasp never tire, and it 
moves along the metal to be cut with an accuracy and 
precision which the human hand, however skilled, could 
never equal. 

The effects of the introduction of the slide-rest were very 
shortly felt in all departments of mechanism. Though it 
had to encounter some of the ridicule with which new 
methods of working are usually received, and for a time 
was spoken of in derision as " Maudslay's Go-cart," its 
practical advantages were so decided that it gradually 
made its way, and became an established tool in all the 
best mechanical workshops. It was found alike capa- 
ble of executing the most delicate and the most ponder- 
ous pieces of machinery; and as slide-lathes could be 
manufactured to any extent, machinery, steam-engines, 
and all kinds of metal work could now be turned out in a 
quantity and at a price that, but for its use, could never 
have been practicable. In course of time various modifi- 
cations of the machine were introduced, — such as the 
planing-machine, the wheel-cutting machine, and other 
beautiful tools on the slide-rest principle, — the result of 
which has been that extraordinary development of me- 
chanical production and power which is so characteristic 
a feature of the age we live in. 

" It is not, indeed, saying at all too much to state," says 
Mr. Nasmyth,* a most competent judge in such a matter, 
"that its influence in improving and extending the use of 

* Eemarks'on the Introduction of the Slide Principle in Tools and 
Machines emploj^ed in the Production of Machinery, in Buchanan's 
Practical Essays on Mill Work and other Machinery, 3d ed., p. 397. 



264 INDUSTRIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

machinery has been as great as that produced by the im- 
provement of the steam-engine in respect to perfecting 
manufactures and extending commerce, inasmuch as with- 
out the aid of the vast accession to our power of pro- 
ducing perfect mechanism which it at once supplied, we 
could never have worked out into practical and profitable 
forms the conceptions of those master minds who, during 
the last half-century, have so successfully pioneered the 
way for mankind. The steam-engine itself, which sup- 
plies us with such unbounded power, owes its present 
perfection to this most admirable means of giving to 
metallic objects the most precise and perfect geometrical 
forms. How could we, for instance, have good steam- 
engines if we had not the means of boring out a true 
cylinder, or turning a true piston-rod, or planing a valve 
face ? It is this alone which has furnished us with the 
means of carrying into practice the accumulated results 
of scientific investigation on mechanical subjects. It 
would be blamable indeed," continues Mr. Nasmyth, 
" after having endeavored to set forth the vast advan- 
tages which have been conferred on the mechanical 
world, and therefore on mankind generally, by the in- 
vention and introduction of the slide-rest, were I to sup- 
press the name of that admirable individual to whom 
we are indebted for this powerful agent towards the at- 
tainment of mechanical perfection. I allude tp Henry 
Maudslay, whose useful life was enthusiastically devoted 
to the grand object of improving our means of producing 
perfect workmanship and machinery : to him we are cer- 
tainly indebted for the slide-rest, and, consequently, to 
say the least, we are indirectly so for the vast benefits 
which have resulted from the inti'oduction of so powerful 
an agent in perfecting our machinery and mechanism 



HENRY MAUDSLAY. 265 

generally. The indefatigable care whicli lie took in in- 
culcating and diffusing among his workmen, and mechani- 
cal men generally, sound ideas of practical knowledge and 
refined views of construction, have rendered, and ever will 
continue to render, his name identified with all that is no- 
ble in the ambition of a lover of mechanical perfection." 
One of the first uses to which Mr. Maudslay applied 
the improved slide-rest, which he perfected shortly after 
beginning business in Margaret Street, Cavendish Square, 
was in executing the requisite tools and machinery re- 
quired by Mr. (afterwards Sir Marc Isambard) Brunei 
for manufacturing ships' blocks. The career of Brunei 
was of a more romantic character than falls to the ordi- 
nary lot of mechanical engineers. His father was a small 
farmer and postmaster, at the village of Hacqueville, in 
Normandy, where Marc Isambard was born in 1769. He 
was early intended for a priest, and educated accordingly. 
But he was much fonder of the carpenter's shop than of 
the school ; and coaxing, entreaty, and punishment alike 
failed in making a hopeful scholar of him. He drew 
faces and plans until his father was almost in despair. 
Sent to school at Rouen, his chief pleasure was in watch- 
ing the ships along the quays ; and one day his curiosity 
was excited by the sight of some large iron-castings just 
landed. What were they ? How had they been made ? 
"Where did they come from ? His eager inquiries were 
soon answered. They were parts of an engine intended 
for the great Paris water-works ; the engine was to pump 
water by the power of steam ; and the castings had been 
made in England, and had just been landed from an 
English ship. " England ! " exclaimed the boy, " ah ! 
when I am a man I will go see the country where such 
grand machines are made ! " On one occasion, seeing a 



266 INDUSTRIAL BIOGEAPHY. 

new tool in a cutler's window, he coveted it so much that 
he pawned his hat to possess it. This was not the right 
road to the priesthood ; and his father soon saw that it 
was of no use urging him further : but the boy's instinct 
proved truer than the father's judgment. 

It was eventually determined that he should qualify 
himself to enter the royal navy, and at seventeen he was 
nominated to serve in a corvette as "volontaire d'hon- 
neur." His ship was paid off in 1792, and he was at 
Paris during the trial of the King. With the incautious- 
ness of youth he openly avowed his royalist opinions in 
the caf^ which he frequented. On the very day that 
Louis was condemned to death, Brunei had an angry 
altercation with some ultra-republicans, after which he 
called to his dog, " Viens, citoyen ! " Scowling looks 
were turned upon him, and he deemed it expedient to 
take the first opportunity of escaping from the house, 
which he did by a back-door, and made the best of his 
way to Hacqueville. From thence he went to Rouen, 
and succeeded in finding a passage on board an Amer- 
ican ship, in which he sailed for New York, having first 
pledged his affections to an English girl, Sophia King- 
dom, whom he had accidentally met at the house of Mr. 
Cai-pentier, the American consul at Rouen. 

Arrived in America, he succeeded in finding employ- 
ment as assistant surveyor of a tract of land along the 
Black River, near Lake Ontario. In the intervals of his 
labors he made occasional visits to New York, and it was 
there that the first idea of his block-machinery occurred 
to him. He carried his idea back with him into the 
woods, where it often mingled with his thoughts of 
Sophia Kingdom, by this time safe in England, after 
passing through the horrors of a Prench prison. "My 



HENEY MAUDSLAY. 267 

first thought of the block-machinery," he once said, " was 
at a dinner-party at Major- General Hamilton's, in New 
York; my second under an American tree, when, one 
day that I was carving letters on its bark, the turn of 
one of them reminded me of it, and I thought, ' Ah ! my 
block ! so it must be ! ' And what do you think were 
the letters I was cutting? Of course none other than 
S. K." Brunei subsequently obtained some employ- 
ment as an architect in New York, and promulgated 
various plans for improving the navigation of the prin- 
cipal rivers. Among the designs of his which were 
carried out was that of tlTe Park Theatre at New 
York, and a cannon foundery, in wliich he introduced 
improvements in casting and boring big guns. But 
being badly paid for his work, and a powerful attrac- 
tion drawing him constantly towards England, he de- 
termined to take final leave of America, which he did 
in 1799, and landed at Falmouth in the following March. 
There he again met Miss Kingdom, who had remained 
faithful to him during his six long years of exile, and the 
pair were shortly after united for life. 

Brunei was a prolific inventor. During his residence 
in America he had planned many contrivances ia his 
mind, which he now proceeded to work out. The first 
was a duplicate writing and drawing machine, which he 
patented. The next was a machine for twisting cotton- 
thread and forming it into balls ; but omitting to protect 
it by a patent, he derived no benefit from the invention, 
though it shortly came into very general use. He then 
invented a machine for trimmings and borders for mus- 
lins, lawns, and cambrics, — of the nature of a sewing- 
machine. His famous block-machinery formed the sub- 
ject of his next patent. 



268 INDUSTRIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

It may be explained that the making of the blocks em- 
ployed in the rigging of ships for raising and lowering 
the sails, masts, and yards was then a highly important 
branch of manufacture. Some idea may be formed of 
the number used in the Eoyal Navy alone, from the fact 
that a seventy-four-gun ship required to be provided with 
no fewer than fourteen hundred blocks of various sizes. 
The sheaved blocks used for the running rigging con- 
sisted of the shell, the sheaves, which revolved within the 
shell, and the pins which fastened them together. The 
fabrication of these articles, though apparently simple, 
was in reality attended with much difficulty. Every part 
had to be fasliioned with great accuracy and precision to 
insure the easy working of the block when put together, 
as any hitch in the raising or lowering of the sails might, 
on certain emergencies, occasion a serious disaster. In- 
deed, it became clear that mere hand-work was not to be 
relied on in the manufacture of these articles, and efforts 
were early made to produce them by means of machinery 
of the most perfect kind that could be devised. In 1781, 
Mr. Taylor, of Southampton, set up a large establishment 
on the river Itchen for their manufacture ; and on the 
expiry of his contract, the government determined to 
estabhsh works of their own in Portsmouth Dock-yard, 
for the purpose at the same time of securing greater 
economy, and of being independent of individual makers 
in the supply of an article of such importance in the 
equipment of ships. 

Sir Samuel Bentham, who then filled the office of In- 
spector-General of Naval Works, was a highly ingenious 
person, and had for some years been applying his mind to 
the invention of improved machinery for working in wood. 
He had succeeded in introducing into the royal dock-yards 



HENRY MAUDSLAY. 269 

sawing-machines and planing-macliines of a superior kind, 
as well as block-making machines. Thus the specification 
of one of his patents, taken out in 1793, clearly describes 
a machine for shaping the shells of the blocks, in a man- 
ner similar to that afterwards specified by Brunei. Ben- 
tham had even proceeded with the erection of a building 
in Portsmouth Dock-yard for the manufacture of the blocks 
after his method, the necessary steam-engine being already 
provided ; but with a singular degree of candor and gen- 
erosity, on Brunei's method being submitted to him, Sir 
Samuel at once acknowledged its superiority to his own, 
and promised to recommend its adoption by the authori- 
ties in liis department. 

The circumstance of Mrs. Brunei's brother being Un- 
der-Secretary to the Navy Board at the time probably 
led Brunei in the first instance to oflfer his invention to 
the Admiralty. A great deal, however, remained to be 
done before he could bring his ideas of the block-machin- 
ery into a definite shape ; for there is usually a wide in- 
terval between the first conception of an intricate machine 
and its practical realization. Though Brunei had a good 
knowledge of mechanics, and was able to master the 
intricacies of any machine, he labored under the disad- 
vantage of not being a practical mechanic ; and it is 
probable that but for the help of some one possessed 
of this important qualification, his invention, ingenious 
and important though it was, would have borne no prac- 
tical fruits. It was at this juncture that he was so fortu- 
nate as to be introduced to Henry Maudslay, the inventor 
of the slide-rest. 

It happened that a M. de Bacquancourt, one of the 
French Emigres, of whom there were then so many in 
London, was accustomed almost daily to pass Maudslay's 



270 INDUSTRIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

little shop in "Wells Street, and being himself an amateur 
turner, he curiously inspected the articles from time to 
time exhibited in the window of the young mechanic. 
One day a more than ordinarily nice piece of screw-cut- 
ting made its appearance, on which he entered the shop 
to make inquiries as to the method by which it had been 
executed. He had a long conversation with Maudslay, 
with whom he was greatly pleased ; and he was after- 
wards accustomed to look in upon him occasionally to 
see what new work was going on. Bacquancourt was 
also on intimate terms with Brunei, who communicated 
to him the difficulty he had experienced in finding a 
mechanic of sufficient dexterity to execute his design 
of the block-making machinery. It immediately occurred 
to the former that Henry Maudslay was the very man to 
execute work of the elaborate character proposed, and he 
described to Brunei the new and beautiful tools which 
Maudslay had contrived for the purpose of insuring 
accuracy and finish. Brunei at once determined to call 
upon Maudslay, and it was arranged that Bacquancourt 
should introduce him, which he did, and after the inter- 
view which took place Brunei promised to call again 
with the drawings of his proposed model. 

A few days passed, and Brunei called with the first 
drawing, done by himself; for he was a capital draughts- 
man, and used to speak of drawing as the " alphabet of 
the engineer." The drawing only showed a little bit of 
the intended machine, and Brunei did not yet think it 
advisable to communicate to Maudslay the precise object 
he had in view ; for inventors are usually very chary of 
explaining their schemes to others, for fear of being an- 
ticipated. Again Brunei appeared at Maudslay's shop 
with a further drawing, stUl not explaining his design ; 



HENRY MAUDSLAY. , 271 

but at the third visit, immediately on looking at the fresh 
drawings he had brought, Maudslay exclaimed, " Ah ! 
now I see what you are thinking of; you want machinery 
for making blocks." At this Brunei became more com- 
municative, and explained his designs to the mechanic, 
who fully entered into his views, and went on from that 
time forward striving to his utmost to work out the in- 
ventor's conceptions and embody them in a practical 
machine. 

While still occupied on the models, which were begun 
in 1800, Maudslay removed his shop from Wells Street, 
where he was assisted by a single journeyman, to Mar- 
garet Street, Cavendish Square, where he had greater 
room for carrying on his trade, and was also enabled to 
increase the number of his hands. The working models 
were ready for inspection by Sir Samuel Bentham and 
the Lords of the Admiralty in 1801, and having been 
fully approved by them, Brunei was authorized to pro- 
ceed with the execution of the requisite machinery for 
the manufacture of the ships'-blocks required for the 
Eoyal Navy. The whole of this machinery was ex- 
ecuted by Henry Maudslay ; it occupied him very fully 
for nearly six years, so that the manufacture of blocks by 
the new process was not begun until September, 1808. 

We despair of being able to give any adequate descrip- 
tion in words of the intricate arrangements and mode of 
action of the block-making machinery. Let any one 
attempt to describe the much more simple and familiar 
process by which a shoemaker makes a pair of shoes, and 
he will find how inadequate mere words are to describe 
any mechanical operation.* Suffice it to say, that the 

* So far as words and drawings can serve to describe the block- 
making machinery, it will be found very ably described by Mr. Farey 



272 ^INDUSTRIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

machinery was of the most beautiful manufacture and 
finish, and even at this day will bear comparison with the 
most perfect machines which can be turned out with all 
the improved appliances of modern tools. The framing 
was of cast-iron, while the parts exposed to violent and 
rapid action were aU of the best hardened steel. In turn- 
ing out the various parts, Maudslay found his slide-rest 
of indispensable value. Indeed, without this contrivance, 
it is doubtful whether machinery of so delicate and in- 
tricate a character could possibly have been executed. 
There was not one, but many machines in the series, 
each devoted to a special operation in the formation of a 
block. Thus there were various sawing-machines, — the 
Straight Cross-Cutting Saw, the Circular Cross-Cutting 
Saw, the Reciprocating Ripping-Saw, and the Circular 
Ripping-Saw. Then there were the Boring Machines, 
and the Mortising Machine, of beautiful construction, for 
cutting the sheave-holes, furnished with numerous chisels, 
each making from one hundred and ten to one hundred 
and fifty strokes a minute, and cutting at every stroke a 
chip as thick as pasteboard with the utmost precision. In 
addition to these were tlie Corner-Saw for cutting off the 
corners of the block, the Shaping Machine for accurately 
forming the outside surfaces, the Scoring Engine for cut- 
ting the groove round the longest diameter of the block 
for the reception of the rope, and various other machines 
for di'illing, riveting, and finishing the blocks, besides 
those for making the sheaves. 

The total number of machines employed in the various 
operations of making a ship's-block by the new method 

in his article under this head in Rees's Cyclopadia, and by Dr. Brew- 
ster in the Edinburgh CyclopcBdia. A very good account will also be 
fouad in Tomlinson's CycUypcedia of the Useful Arts, Art. " Block." 



HENRY MAUDSLAY. 273 

was forty-four ; and after being regularly employed in 
Portsmouth Dockyard for upwards of fifty years, they 
are still as perfect in their action as on the day they were 
erected. They constitute one of the most ingenious and 
complete collections of tools ever invented for making 
aj-ticles in wood, being capable of performing most of the 
practical operations of carpentry with the utmost accuracy 
and finish. The raachmes are worked by a steam-engine 
of thirty-two-horse power, which is also used for various 
other dockyard purposes. Under the new system of 
block-making it was found that the articles were better 
made, supplied with much greater rapidity, and executed 
at a greatly reduced cost. Only ten men, with the new 
machinery, could perform the work which before had re- 
quired a hundred and ten men to execute, and not fewer 
than one hundred and sixty thousand blocks of various 
kinds and sizes could be turned out in a year, worth not 
less than 541,000/.* 

The satisfactory execution of the block-machinery 
brought Maudslay a large accession of fame and business ; 
and the premises in Margaret Street proving much too 
limited for his requirements, he again resolved to shift his 
quarters. He found a piece of ground suitable for his 
purpose in Westminster Road, Lambeth. Little more 



* The remuneration paid to Mr. Brunei for his share in the inven- 
tion was only one year's savings, which, however, were estimated by 
Sir Samuel Bentham at 17,663Z. ; besides which a grant of 5,000Z. was 
afterwards made to Brunei when laboring under peciiniary difficul- 
ties. But the annual saving to the nation by the adoption of the block- 
making machinery was probably more than the entire sum paid to the 
engineer. Brunei afterwards invented other wood-working machinery, 
but none to compare in merit and excellence with the above. For 
further particulars of his career, see Beasiish's Memoirs of Sir Marc 
Isambard Brunei, C. E. London, 1862. 

12* B 



274 INDUSTEIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

than a century since it formed part of a marsh, the name 
of which is still retained in the adjoining street ; its prin- 
cipal productions being bulrushes and willows, which 
were haunted in certain seasons by snipe and waterfowl. 
An enterprising riding-master had erected some premises 
on a part of the marsh, which he used for a riding-school ; 
but the speculation not answering, they were sold, and 
Henry Maudslay became the proprietor. Hither he re- 
moved his machinery from Margaret Street in 1810, 
adding fresh plant from time to time as it was required ; 
and with the aid of his late excellent partner he built up 
the far-famed establishment of Maudslay, Field, & Co. 
There he went on improving his old tools and inventing 
new ones, as the necessity for them arose, until the original 
slide-lathes used for making the block-machinery became 
thrown into the shade by the comparatively gigantic ma- 
chine-tools of the modern school. Yet the original lathes 
are still to be found in the collection of the firm in West- 
minster Road, and continue to do their daily quota of 
work with the same precision as they did when turned 
out of the hands of then- inventor and maker some sixty 
years ago. 

It is unnecessary that we should describe in any great 
detail the further career of Henry Maudslay. The rest 
of his life Avas full of useful and profitable work to others 
as well as to himself His business embraced the making 
of flour and saw mills, mint machinery, and steam-engines 
of all kinds. Before he left Margaret Street, in 1807, he 
took out a patent for improvements in the steam-engine, by 
which he much simplified its parts, and secured greater di- 
rectness of action. His new engine was called the Pyram- 
idal, because of its form, and M'as the first move towards 
what are now called Direct-acting Engines, in which the 



HENRY MAUDSLAY. 275 

lateral movement of the piston is communicated by con- 
necting-rods to the rotatory movement of the crank-shaft. 
Mr. Nasmyth says of it, that " on account of its great sim- 
plicity and get-at-ability of parts, its compactness and self- 
contained steadiness, this engine has been the parent of a 
vast progeny, all more or less marked by the distinguish- 
ing features of the original design, which is still in as high 
favor as ever." Mr. Maudslay also directed his attention 
in like manner to the improvement of the marine engine, 
which he made so simple and effective as to become in a 
great measure the type of its class ; and it has held its 
ground almost unchanged for nearly thirty years. The 
" Regent," which was the first steamboat that plied be- 
tween London and Margate, was fitted with engines by 
Maudslay in 1816; and it proved the forerunner of a 
vast number of marine engines, the manufacture of which 
soon became one of the most important branches of 
mechanical engineering. 

Another of Mr. Maudslay's inventions was his machine 
for punching boiler-plates, by which the production of iron- 
work of many kinds was greatly facilitated. This improve- 
ment originated in the contract which he held for some 
years for supplying the Royal Navy with iron plates for 
ships' tanks. The operations of shearing and punching 
had before been very imperfectly done by hand, with great 
expenditure of labor. To improve the style of the work 
and lessen the labor, Maudslay invented the machine now 
in general use, by which the holes punched in the iron 
plate are exactly equidistant, and the subsequent operation 
of riveting is greatly facilitated. One of the results of the 
improved method was the great saving which was at once 
effected in the cost of preparing the plates to receive the 
rivets, the price of which was reduced from seven shillings 
per tank to ninepence. 



276 INDUSTRIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

He continued to devote himself to the last to the im- 
provement of the lathe, — in his opinion the master-ma- 
chine, the life and soul of engine-turning, of which the 
planing, screw-cutting, and other machines in common 
use, are but modifications. In one of the early lathes 
which he contrived and made, the mandrill was nine 
inches in diameter ; it was driven by wheel-gearing like 
a crane motion, and adapted to different speeds. Some 
of his friends, on first looking at it, said he was going 
" too fast " ; but he lived to see work projected on so 
large a scale as to prove that his conceptions were just, 
and that he had merely anticipated by a few years the 
mechanical progi'ess of his time. His large removable 
bar-lathe was a highly important tool of the same kind. 
It was used to turn surfaces many feet in diameter. 
While it could be used for boring wheels, or the side-rods 
of marine engines, it could turn a roller or cylinder twice 
or three times tlie diameter of its own centres from the 
ground-level, and indeed could drive round work of any 
diameter that would clear the roof of the shop. This 
was, therefore, an almost universal tool, capable of very 
extensive uses. Indeed, much of the work now executed 
by means of special tools, such as the planing or slotting 
machine, was then done in the lathe, which was used as 
a cutter-shaping machine, fitted with various appliances 
according to the work. 

Maudslay's love of accuracy also led him from an early 
period to study the subject of improved screw-cutting. 
The importance of this dei:»artment of mechanism can 
scarcely be overrated, the solidity and permanency of 
most mechanical structures mainly depending on the em- 
ployment of the screw, at the same time that the parts 
can be readily separated for renewal or repair. Any one 



HENRY MAUDSLAY. 277 

can form an idea of the importance of the screw as an 
element in mechanical construction by examining say a 
steam-engine, and counting the number of screws em- 
ployed in holding it together. Previous to the time at 
which the subject occupied the attention of our mechanic, 
the tools used for making screws were of the most rude 
and inexact kind. The screws were for the most part 
cut by hand : the small by filing, the larger by chipping 
and filing. In consequence of the great ditficulty of 
making them, as few were used as possible ; and cotters, 
cotterils, or forelocks, were employed instead. Screws, 
however, were to a certain extent indispensable ; and 
each manufacturing establishment made them after their 
own fashion. There was an utter want of uniformity. 
No system was observed as to " pitch," i. e. the number 
of threads to the inch, nor was any rule followed as to 
the form of those threads. Every bolt and nut was a 
sort of specialty in itself, and neither owed nor admitted 
of any community with its neighbors. To such an extent 
was this irregularity carried, that all bolts and their cor- 
responding nuts had to be marked as belonging to each 
other ; and any mixing of them together led to endless 
trouble, hopeless confusion, and enormous expense. In- 
deed, none but those who lived in the comparatively early 
days of machine-manufacture can form an adequate idea 
of the annoyance occasioned by the want of system in this 
branch of detail, or duly appreciate the services rendered 
by Maudslay to mechanical engineering by the practical 
measures which he was among the first to introduce for 
its remedy. In his system of screw-cutting machinery, 
his taps and dies, and screw-tackle generally, he laid the 
foundations of all that has since been done in this essen- 
tial branch of machine construction, in which he was so 



278 INDUSTRIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

ably followed up by several of the eminent mechanics 
brought up in his school, and more especially by Joseph 
Clement and Joseph Whitworth. One of his earliest 
self-acting screw lathes, moved by a guide-screw and 
wheels after the plan followed by the latter engineer, cut 
screws of large diameter and of any required pitch. As 
an illustration of its completeness and accuracy, we may 
mention that by its means a screw five feet in length, and 
two inches in diameter, was cut with fifty threads to the 
inch ; the nut to fit on to it being twelve inches long, and 
containing six hundred threads. This screw was princi- 
pally used for dividing scales for astronomical purposes ; 
and by its means divisions were produced so minute that 
they could not be detected without the aid of a magni- 
fier. The screw, which was sent for exhibition to the 
Society of Arts, is stiU carefully preserved amongst the 
specimens of Maudslay's handicraft, at the Lambeth Works, 
and is a piece of delicate work which every skilled me- 
chanic will thoroughly appreciate. Yet the tool by which 
this fine piece of turning was produced was not an excep- 
tional tool, but was daily employed in the ordinary work 
of the manufactory. 

Like every good workman who takes pride in his craft, 
he kept his tools in fii'St-rate order, clean and tidily ar- 
ranged, so that he could laj his hand upon the thing he 
wanted at once, without loss of time. They are still pre- 
served in the state in which he left them, and strikingly 
illustrate his love of order, " nattiness," and dexterity. 
Mr. Nasmyth says of him that you could see the man's 
character in whatever work he turned out; and as the 
connoisseur in art will exclaim at sight of a picture, 
" That is Turner," or " That is Stansfield," detecting the 
hand of the master in it, so the experienced mechanician, 



HENRY MAUDSLAY. 279 

at sight of one of his machines or engines, will be equally- 
ready to exclaim, " That is Maudslay " ; for the character- 
istic style of the master-mind is as clear to the experi- 
enced eye in the case of the finished machine as the 
touches of the artist's pencil are in the case of the fin- 
ished picture. Every mechanical contrivance that be- 
came the subject of his study came forth from his hand 
and mind rearranged, simplified, and made new, with the 
impress of his individuality stamped upon it. He at once 
stripped the subject of all lumecessary complications ; for 
he possessed a wonderful faculty of knowing what to do 
without, — the result of his clearness of insight into me- 
chanical adaptations, and the accurate and well-defined 
notions he had formed of the precise object to be accom- 
plished. " Every member or separate machine in the 
system of block-machinery," says Mr. Nasmyth, " is full 
of Maudslay 's presence ; and in that machinery, as con- 
structed by him, is to be found the parent of every engi- 
neering tool by the aid of which we are now achieving 
such great things in mechanical construction. To the 
tools of which Maudslay furnished the prototypes are we 
mainly indebted for the perfection of our textile machin- 
ery, our locomotives, our marine engines, and the various 
implements of art, of agriculture, and of war. K any 
one who can enter into the details of this subject will be 
at the pains to analyze, if I may so term it, the machin- 
ery of our modern engineering workshops, he will find in 
all of them the strongly-marked features of Maudslay's 
parent machine, the slide-rest and slide system, — whether 
it be a planing-machine, a slotting-machine, a slide-lathe, 
or any other of the wonderful tools which are now ena- 
bling us to accomplish so much in mechanism." 

One of the things in which Mr. Maudslay took just 



280 INDUSTRIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

pride was in the excellence of his work. In designing 
and executing it, his main object was to do it in the best 
possible style and finish, altogether irrespective of the 
probable pecuniary results. This he regarded in the 
light of a duty he could not and would not evade, in- 
dependent of its being a good investment for securing a 
future reputation ; and the character which he thus ob- 
tained, although at times purchased at great cost, event- 
ually justified the soundness of his views. As the emi- 
nent Mr. Penn, the head of the great engineering firm, 
is accustomed to say, " I cannot afibrd to turn out second- 
rate work," so Mr. Maudslay found both character and 
profit in striving after the highest excellence in his pro- 
ductions. He was particular even in the minutest details. 
Thus one of the points on which he insisted, — apparently 
a trivial matter, but in reality of considerable importance 
in mechanical construction, — was the avoidance of sharp 
interior angles in iron work, whether wrought or cast ; for 
he found that in such interior angles cracks were apt to 
originate ; and when the article was a tool, the sharp an- 
gle was less pleasant to the hand as well as to the eye. 
In the application of his favorite round or hollow corner 
system, — as, for instance, in the case of the points of junc- 
tion of the arms of a wheel with its centre and rim, — 
he used to illustrate its superiority by holding up his hand 
and pointing out the nice rounded hollow at the junction 
of the fingers, or by referring to the junction of the 
branches to the stem of a tree. Hence he made a point 
of having all the angles of his machine framework nicely 
rounded off" on their exterior, and carefully hollowed in 
their interior angles. In forging such articles he would so 
shape his metal before bending that the result should be 
the right hollow or rounded corner when bent ; the anti- 



HENRY MAUDSLAY. 281 

cipated external angle falling into its proper place when 
the bar so shaped was brought to its ultimate form. In 
aU such matters of detail he was greatly assisted by his 
early dexterity as a blacksmith ; and he used to say that 
to be a good smith you must be able to see in the bar of 
iron the object proposed to be got out of it by the ham- 
mer or the tool, just as the sculptor is supposed to see in 
the block of stone the statue which he proposes to bring 
forth from it by his mind and his chisel. 

Mr. Maudslay did not allow himself to forget his skill 
in the use of the hammer, and to the last he took pleas- 
ure in handling it, sometimes in the way of business, and 
often through sheer love of his art. Mr. Nasmyth says : 
" It was one of my duties, while acting as assistant in his 
beautiful little workshop, to keep up a stock of handy 
bars of lead which he had placed on a shelf under his 
work-bench, which was of thick slate, for the more ready 
making of his usual illustrative sketches of machinery in 
chalk. His love of iron-forging led him to take delight 
in forging the models of work to be ultimately done in 
iron ; and cold lead being of about the same malleability 
as red-hot iron, furnished a convenient material for illus- 
trating the method to be adopted with the large work. I 
well remember the smile of satisfaction that lit up his 
honest face when he met with a good excuse for " having 
a go at " one of the bars of lead with hammer and anvil 
as if it were a bar of iron ; and how, with a few dexter- 
ous strokes, punchings of holes, and rounded notches, he 
would give the rough bar or block its desired form. He 
always aimed at working it out of the solid as much as 
possible, so as to avoid the risk of any concealed defect, 
to which iron-work buUt up of welded parts is so liable ; 
and when he had thus cleverly finished his model, he 



282 INDUSTRIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

used forthwith to send for the foreman of smiths, and 
show him how he was to instruct his men as to the 
proper forging of the desired object." One of Mr. 
Maudslay's old workmen, when informing us of the 
skilful manner in which he handled the file, said, "It 
was a pleasure to see him handle a tool of any kind, but 
he was quite splendid with an eigh teen-inch file ! " The 
vice at which he worked was constructed by himself, and 
it was perfect of its kind. It could be turned round to 
any position on the bench ; the jaws would turn from the 
horizontal to the perpendicular or any other position, — 
upside-down if necessary, — and they would open twelve 
inches parallel. 

Mr. Nasmyth furnishes the following further recollec- 
tions of Mr. Maudslay, which will serve in some measure 
to illustrate his personal character. " Henry Maudslay," 
he says, " lived in the days of snufi-taking, which un- 
happily, as I think, has given way to the cigar-smoking 
system. He enjoyed his occasional pinch very much. 
It generally preceded the giving out of a new notion or 
suggestion for an improvement or alteration of some job 
in hand. As with most of those who enjoy their pinch, 
about three times as much was taken between the fingers 
as was utilized by the nose, and the consequence was that 
a large unconsumed surplus collected in the folds of the 
master's waistcoat as he sat working at his bench. Some- 
times a file, or a tool, or some small piece of work would 
drop, and then it was my duty to go down on my knees 
and fetch it up. On such occasions, while waiting for the 
article, he would take the opportunity of pulling down 
his waistcoat front, which had become disarranged by 
his energetic working at the bench ; and many a time 
have I come up with the dropped article, half-blinded 



HENRY MAUDSLAY. 283 

by the snuff jerked into my eyes from off his waistcoat 
front. 

" All the while he was at work he would be narrating 
some incident in his past life, or describing the progress 
of some new and important undertaking, in illustrating 
which he would use the bit of chalk ready to his hand 
upon the slate bench before him, which was thus in almost 
constant use. One of the pleasures he indulged in while 
he sat at work was Music, of which he was very fond, — 
more particularly of melodies and airs which took a last- 
ing hold on his mind. Hence he was never without an 
assortment of musical boxes, some of which were of a 
large size. One of these he would set agoing on his 
library table, which was next to his workshop, and with 
the door kept open, he was thus enabled to enjoy the 
music while he sat working at his bench. Intimate 
Mends would frequently call upon him and sit by the 
hour, but though talking all the while he never dropped 
his work, but continued employed on it with as much zeal 
as if he were only beginning life. His old friend Sir 
Samuel Bentham was a frequent caller in this way, as 
well as Sir Isambard Brunei while occupied with his 
Thames Tunnel works,* and Mr. Chantrey, who was 
accustomed to consult him about the casting of his 
bronze statuary. Mr. Barton of the Royal Mint, and 
Mr. Donkin the engineer, with whom Mr. Barton was 
associated in ascertaining and devising a correct system 
of dividing the Standard Yard, and many others, had 

* Among the last works executed by the firm during Mr. Maudslay's 
ILfetime was the famous Shield employed by his friend Brunei in caiTy- 
ing forward the excavation of the Thames Tunnel. He also supplied 
the pumping-engines for the same great work, the completion of which 
he did not live to see. 



284 INDUSTRIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

like audience of Mr. Maudslay in his little workshop, for 
friendly converse, for advice, or on affairs of business. 

" It was a special and constant practice with hira on a 
workman's holiday, or on a Sunday morning, to take a 
walk through his workshops when all was quiet, and then 
and there examine the various jobs in hand. On such 
occasions he carried with him a piece of chalk, with 
which, in a neat and very legible hand, he would record 
his remarks in the most pithy and sometimes caustic 
tei-ms. Any evidence of want of correctness in setting 
things square, or in " flat filing," which he held in high 
esteem, or untidiness in not sweeping down the bench 
and laying the tools in order, was sure to have a record 
in chalk made on the spot. If it was a mild case, the 
reproof was recorded in gentle terms, simply to show 
that the master's eye was on the workman ; but where 
the case deserved hearty approbation or required equally 
hearty reproof, the words employed were few, but went 
straight to the mai*k. These chalk jottings on the bench 
were held in the highest respect by the workmen them- 
selves, whether they conveyed praise or blame, as they 
were sure to be deserved ; and when the men next as- 
sembled, it soon became known all over the shop who 
had received the honor or otherwise of one of the master's 
bench memoranda in chalk." 

The vigilant, the critical, and yet withal the generous 
eye of the master being over all his workmen, it will 
readily be understood how Maudslay's works came to be 
regarded as a first-class school for mechanical engineers. 
Every one felt that the quality of his workmanship was 
fully understood ; and, if he had the right stuff in him, 
and was determined to advance, that his progress in skill 
would be thoroughly appreciated. It is scarcely neces- 



HENRY MAUDSLAY. 285 

sary to point out Tiow this feeling, pervading the establish- 
ment, must have operated, not only in maintaining the 
quality of the work, but in improving the character of 
the workmen. The results were felt in the increased 
practical ability of a large number of artisans, some of 
whom subsequently rose to the highest distinction. In- 
deed it may be said that what Oxford and Cambridge are 
in letters, workshops such as Maudslay's and P.enn's are 
in mechanics. Nor can Oxford and Cambridge men be 
prouder of the connection with their respective colleges 
than mechanics such as Whitworth, Nasmyth, Roberts, 
Muir, and Lewis are of their connection with the school 
of Maudslay. For all these distinguished engineers at 
one time or another formed part of his working staff, 
and were trained to the exercise of their special abilities 
under his own eye. The result has been a development 
of mechanical ability the like of which perhaps is not to 
be found in any age or country. 

Although IVIr. Maudslay was an unceasing inventor, he 
troubled himself very little about patenting his inventions. 
He considered that the superiority of his tools and the 
excellence of his work were his surest protection. Yet 
he had sometimes the annoyance of being threatened 
with actions by persons who had patented the inven- 
tions which he himself had made.* He was much beset 

* His principal patents were, — two, taken out in 1805 and 1808, 
■while in Margaret Street, for printing calicoes (Nos. 2872 and 3117); 
one taken out in 1806, in conjunction with Mr. Donkin, for lifting 
heavy weights (2948); one taken out in 1807, while still in Margaret 
Street, for improvements in the steam-engine, reducing its parts and 
rendering it more compact and portable (3050) ; another, taken out in 
conjunction with Robert Dickinson in 1812, for sweetening water and 
other liquids (3538); and, lastly, a patent taken out in conjunction 
with Joshua Field in 1824, for preventing concentration of brine in 
boilers (6021). 



286 INDUSTRIAL BIOGEAPHY. 

by inventors, sometimes sadly out at elbows, but always 
with a boundless fortune looming before them. To such 
as applied to him for advice in a frank and candid spirit, 
he did not hesitate to speak freely, and communicate the 
results of his great experience in the most liberal manner ; 
and to poor and deserving men of this class he was often 
found as ready to help them with his purse as with his 
still more valuable advice. He had a singular way of 
estimating the abilities of those who thus called upon him 
about their projects. The highest order of man was 
marked in his own mind at 100° ; and by this ideal 
standard he measured others, setting them down at 90°, 
80°, and so on. A very first-rate man he would set down 
at 95°, but men of this rank were exceedingly rare. After 
an interview with one of the applicants to him for advice, 
he would say to his pupil Nasmyth, " Jem, I think that 
man may be set down at 45°, but he might be worked up 
to 60°," — a common enough way of speaking of the 
working of a steam-engine, but a somewhat novel, though 
by no means an inexpressive, method of estimating the 
powers of an individual. 

But while he had much toleration for modest and 
meritorious inventors, he had a great dislike for secret- 
mongers, — schemers of the close, cunning sort, — and 
usually made short work of them. He had an almost 
equal aversion for what he called the " fiddle-faddle in- 
ventors," with their omnibus patents, into which they 
packed every possible thing that their noddles could 
imagine. "Only once* or twice in a century," said he, 
" does a great inventor appear, and yet here we have a 
set of fellows each taking out as many patents as would 
fill a cart, — some of them embodying not a single origi- 
nal idea, but including in their specifications all manner 



HENRY MAUDSLAY. 287 

of modifications of well-known processes, as well as an- 
ticipating the arrangements which may become practicable 
in the progress of mechanical improvement." Many of 
these " patents " he regarded as mere pitfalls to catch the 
unwary ; and he spoke of such " inventors " as the pests 
of the profession. 

The personal appearance of Henry Maudslay was in 
correspondence with his character. He was of a com- 
manding presence, for he stood full six feet two inches in 
height, a massive and portly man. His face was round, 
full, and lit up with good humor. A fine, large, and 
square forehead, of the grand constructive order, domi- 
nated over all, and his bright, keen eye gave energy and 
life to his countenance. He was thoroughly "jolly" and 
good-natured, yet full of force and character. It was a 
positive delight to hear his cheerful, ringing laugh. He 
was cordial in manner, and his frankness set everybody 
at their ease who had occasion to meet him, even for the 
first time. No one could be more faithful and consistent 
in his friendships, nor more firm in the hour of adversity. 
In fine, Henry Maudslay was, as described by his friend 
Mr. Nasmyth, the very beau ideal of an honest, upright, 
straightforward, hard-working, ir ;.elligent Englishman. 

A severe cold, which he caught on his way homo- from 
one of his visits to France, was the cause of his death, 
which occurred on the 14th of February, 1831. The void 
which his decease caused was long and deeply felt, not 
only by his family and his large circle of friends, but by 
his workmen, who admired him for his industrial skill, 
and loved him because of his invariably manly, generous, 
and upright conduct towards them. He directed that he 
should be buried in Woolwich parish-churchyard, where 
a cast-iron tomb, made to his own design, was erected 



288 INDUSTRIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

over liis remains. He had ever a warm heart for Wool- 
wich, where he had been born and brought up. He often 
returned to it, sometimes to carry his mother a share of 
his week's wages while she lived, and afterwards to re- 
fresh himself with the sight of the neighborhood with 
which he had been so familiar when a boy. He liked 
its green common, with the soldiers about it ; Shooter's 
Hill, with its out-look over Kent and down the valley of 
the Thames ; the river busy with shipping, and the royal 
craft loading and unloading their armaments at the dock- 
yard wharves. He liked the clangor of the Arsenal 
smithy, where he had first learned his art, and all the 
busy industry of the place. It was natural, therefore, 
that, being proud of his early connection with Woolwich, 
he should wish to lie there ; and Woolwich, on its part, 
let us add, has equal reason to be proud of Henry 
Maudslay. 



CHAPTER XIII. 



Joseph Clement. 



" It is almost impossible to over-estimate the importance of these inventions. 
The Greeks would have elevated their authors among the gods ; nor will the en- 
lightened judgment of modern times deny them the place among their fellow-men 
which is so undeniably their due." — Ediniurgh Review. 



That skill in mechanical contrivance is a matter of 
education and training as well as of inborn faculty, is 
clear from the fact of so many of our distinguished 
mechanics undergoing the same kind of practical disci- 
pline, and perhaps still more so from the circumstance 
of so many of them passing through the same workshops. 
Thus Maudslay and Clement were trained in the work- 
shops of Bramah ; and Roberts, Whitworth, Nasmyth, 
and others, were trained in those of Maudslay. 

Joseph Clement was born at Great Ashby in West- 
moreland, in the year 1779. His father was a hand-loom 
weaver, and a man of remarkable culture, considering his 
humble station in Hfe. He was an ardent student of 
natural history, and possessed a much more complete 
knowledge of several sub-branches of that science than 
was to have been looked for in a common workingman. 
One of the departments which he specially studied was 
Entomology. In his leisure hours he was accustomed 
to traverse the country searching the hedge-bottoms for 
beetles and other insects, of which he formed a remarka- 
bly complete collection ; and the capture qf ^ rare spcci- 



290 INDUSTRIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

men was quite an event in his life. In order more de- 
liberately to study the habits of the bee tribe, he had a 
number of hives constructed, for the purpose of enabling 
him to watch their proceedings without leaving his work ; 
and the pursuit was a source of the greatest pleasure to 
him. He was a lover of all dumb creatures ; his cottage 
was haunted by birds which flew in and out at his door, 
and some of them became so tame as to hop up to him 
and feed out of his hand. " Old Clement " was also a bit 
of a mechanic, and such of his leisure moments as he 
did not devote to insect-hunting were employed in work- 
ing a lathe of his own construction, which he used to turn 
his bobbins on, and also in various kinds of amateur 
mechanics. 

His boy Joseph, like other poor men's sons, was early 
set to work. He received very little education, and learnt 
only the merest rudiments of reading and writing at the 
village school. The rest of his education he gave to him- 
self as he grew older. His father needed. his help at the 
loom, where he worked with him for some years ; but, as 
hand-loom weaving was gradually being driven out by im- 
proved mechanism, the father prudently resolved to put 
his son to a better trade. They have a saying in Cum- 
berland, that when the bairns reach a certain age they 
are thrown on to the house-rigg, and that those who stick 
on are made thatchers of, while those who fall off are 
sent to St. Bees to be made parsons of. Joseph must 
have been one of those that stuck on, — at all events 
his father decided to make him a thatcher, afterwards a 
slater, and he worked at that trade for five years, between 
eighteen and twenty-three. 

The son, like the father, had a strong liking for me- 
chanics, and as the slating trade did not keep him in reg- 



JOSEPH CLEMENT. 291 

ular employment, especially in winter time, he had plenty 
of opportunity for following the bent of his inclinations. 
He made a friend of the village blacksmith, whose smithy 
he was accustomed to frequent, and there he learned to 
work at the forge, to handle the hammer and file, and in 
a short time to shoe horses with considerable expertness. 
A cousin of his named Farer a clock and watch maker by 
trade, having returned to the village from London, brought 
with him some books on mechanics, which he lent to Jo- 
seph to read ; and they kindled in him an ardent desire 
to be a mechanic instead of a slater. He nevertheless 
continued to maintain himself by the latter trade for some 
time longer, until his skill had grown; and, by way of 
cultivating it, he determined, with the aid of his friend 
the village blacksmith, to make a turning-lathe. The 
two set to work, and the result was the production of an 
article in every way superior to that made by Clement's 
father, which was accordingly displaced to make room for 
the new machine. It was found to work very satisfac- 
torily, and by its means Joseph proceeded to turn fifes, 
flutes, clarinets, and hautboys ; for to his other accom- 
plishments he joined that of music, and could play upon 
the instruments that he made. One of his most ambitious 
eflTorts was the making of a pair of Northumberland bag- 
pipes, which he finished to his satisfaction, and performed 
upon to the great delight of the villagers. To assist his 
father in his entomological studies, he even contrived, 
with the aid of the descriptions given in the books bor- 
rowed from his cousin the watchmaker, to make for him a 
microscope, from which he proceeded to make a reflecting 
telescope, winch proved a very good instrument. At this 
early period (1804) he also seems to have directed his 
attention to screw-making, — a branch of mechanics in 



292 • INDUSTRIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

wHcli lie afterwards became famous ; and he proceeded 
to make a pair of very satisfactory die-stocks, though it 
is said that he had not before seen or even heard of such 
a contrivance for making screws. 

So clever a workman was not likely to remain long a 
village slater. Although the ingenious pieces of work 
which he turned out by his lathe did not bring iiim in 
much money, he liked the occupation so much better than 
slating that he was gradually giving up that trade. His 
father urged him to stick to slating as " a safe thing " ; but 
his own mind was in favor of following his instinct to be 
a mechanic ; and at length he determined to leave his vil- 
lage and seek work in a new line. He succeeded in find- 
ing employment in a small factory at Kirby Stephen, a 
town some thirteen miles from Great Ashby, where he 
worked at making power-looms. From an old statement 
of account against his employer which we have seen, in 
his own handwriting, dated the 6th September, 1805, it 
appears that his earnings at such work as "fitting the 
fiirst set of iron loames," " fitting up shittles," and " mak- 
ing moddles," were 3s. M. a day ; and he must, during 
the same time, have lived with his employer, who charged 
him as a set-off "14 weaks bord at 8s. per weak." He 
afterwards seems to have worked at piece-work in part- 
nership with one Andrew Gamble, — supplying the mate- 
rials as well as the workmanship for the looms and shut- 
tles. His employer, Mr. George Dickinson, also seems 
to have bought his reflecting telescope from him for the 
sum of 12^. 

From Kirby Stephen, Clement removed to Carlisle, 
where he was employed by Forster and Sons during the 
next two years at the same description of work ; and he 
conducted himself, according to their certificate on his ' 



JOSEPH CLEMENT. 293 

leaving their employment to proceed to Glasgow in 1807, 
" with great sobriety and industry, entirely to their satis- 
faction." While Avorking at Glasgow as a turner, he took 
lessons in drawing from Peter Nicholson, the weU-known 
writer on carpentry, — a highly ingenious man. Nichol- 
son happened to call at the shop at which Clement worked 
in order to make a drawing of a power-loom ; and Clem- 
ent's expressions of admii'ation at his expertness were 
so enthusiastic, that Nicholson, pleased with the youth's 
praise, asked if he could be of service to him in any way. 
Emboldened by the offer, Clement requested, as the 
greatest favor he could confer upon him, to have the 
loan of the dramng he had just made, in order that he 
might copy it. The request was at once complied with ; 
and Clement, though very poor at the time, and scarcely 
able to buy candle for the long winter evenings, sat up 
late every night until he had finished it. Though the 
first drawing he had ever made, he handed it back to 
Nicholson instead of the original, and at first the 
draughtsman did not recognize that the drawing was 
not his own. When Clement told him that it was on- 
ly the copy, Nicholson's brief but emphatic praise was, 
" Young man, you 'II do ! " Proud to have such a pupil, 
Nicholson generously offered to give him gratuitous les- 
sons in drawing, which were thankfully accepted; and 
Clement, working at nights with great ardor, soon made 
rapid progress, and became an expert draughtsman. 

Trade being very slack in Glasgow at the time, Clem- 
ent, after about a year's stay in the place, accepted a situ- 
ation with Messrs. Leys, Masson, and Co., of Aberdeen, 
with whom he began at a guinea and a half a week, from 
which he gradually rose to two guineas, and ultimately to 
three guineas. His principal work consisted in designing 



.294 INDUSTEIAL BIOGEAPHY. 

and making power-looms for his employers, and fitting 
them up in diflPerent parts of the country. He continued 
to devote himself to the study of practical mechanics, and 
made many improvements in the tools with which he 
worked. While at Glasgow he had made an improved 
pair of die-stocks for screws ; and at Aberdeen he made 
a turning-lathe with a sliding mandrill and guide-screws, 
for cutting screws, furnished also with the means for cor- 
recting guide-screws. In the same machine he introduced 
a small slide-rest, into which he fixed the tool for cutting 
the screws, — having never before seen a slide-rest, though 
it is very probable he may have heard of what Maudslay 
had already done in the same direction. Clement con- 
tinued during this period of his life an industrious self- 
cultivator, occujjying most of his spare hours in mechani- 
cal and landscape drawing, and in various studies. Among 
the papers left behind him we find a ticket to a course of 
instruction on Natural Philosophy given by Professor 
Copland in the Marischal College at Aberdeen, which 
Clement attended in the session of 1812-13; and we do 
not doubt that our mechanic was among the most diligent 
of his pupils. 

Towards the end of 1813, after saving about 100?. out 
of his wages, Clement resolved to proceed to London for 
the purpose of improving himself in his trade and pushing 
his way in the world. The coach by which he travelled 
set him down in Snow Hill, Holborn; and his first 
thought was of finding Avork. He had no friend in 
toAvn to consult on the matter, so he made inquiry of the 
coach-guard whether he knew of any jjerson in the me- 
chanical line in that neighborhood. The guard said, 
" Yes ; there was Alexander Galloway's show shop, just 
round the corner, and he employed a large number of 



JOSEPH CLEMENT. 295 

hands." Running round the comer, Clement looked in 
at Galloway's window, through which he saw some lathes 
and other articles used in machine-shops. Next morning 
he called upon the owner of the shop to ask employment. 
*' "What can you do ? " asked Galloway. " I can work at 
the forge," said Clement. " Anything else ? " "I can 
turn." " What else ? " "I can draw." " What ! " said 
Galloway, " can you di-aw ? Then I will engage you." 
A man who could draw or work to a drawing in those 
days was regarded as a superior sort of mechanic. 
Though Galloway was one of the leading tradesmen of 
his time, and had excellent opportunities for advance- 
ment, he missed them all. As Clement afterwards said 
of him, " He was only a mouthing common-councU man, 
the height of whose ambition was to be an alderman " ; 
and, like most corporation celebrities, he held a low rank 
in his own business. He very rarely went into his work- 
shops to superintend or direct his workmen, leaving this 
to his foremen, — a sufficient indication of the causes of 
his failure as a mechanic* 

* On one occasion Galloway had a cast-iron roof made for his work- 
shop, so flat and so independent of ties that the wonder was that it 
shonld have stood an hour. One day Peter Keir, an engineer much 
employed by the government, — a clever man, though somewhat eccen- 
tric, — was taken into the shop by Galloway to admire the new roof. 
Keir, on glancing up at it, immediately exclaimed, " Come outside, 
and let us speak about it there! " All that he could say to Galloway 
respecting the unsoundness of its construction was of no avail. The 
fact was that, however Keir might argue about its not being able to 
stand, there it was actually standing, and that was enough for Gal- 
loway. Keir went home, his mind filled with Galloway's most un- 
principled roof. " If that stands," said he to himself, " all that I have 
been learning and doing for thirty years has been wrong." That night 
he could not sleep for thinking about it. In the morning he strolled 
up Primrose Hill, and returned home still muttering to himself about 
" that roof." " What," said his wife to him, " are you thinking of 



296 INDUSTRIAL BIOGEAPHY. 

On entering Galloway's shop, Clement was first em- 
ployed in working at the lathe ; but finding the tools so 
bad that it was impossible to execute satisfactory work 
with them, he at once went to the forge, and began mak- 
ing a new set of tools for himself The other men, to 
whom such a proceeding was entirely new, came round 
him to observe his operations, and they were much struck 
with his manual dexterity. The tools made, he pro- 
ceeded to use them, displaying what seemed to the other 
workmen an unusual degree of energy and intelligence ; 
and some of the old hands did not hesitate already to 
pronounce Clement to be the best mechanic in the shop. 
When Saturday night came round, the other men were 
curious to know what wages Galloway would allow the 
new hand ; and when he had been paid, they asked him. 
" A guinea," was the reply. " A guinea ! "Why, you are 
worth two if you are worth a shilling," said an old man 
who came out of the rank, — an excellent mechanic, who, 
though comparatively worthless through his devotion to 
drink, knew Clement's money value to his employer bet- 
ter than any inan there ; and he added, " Wait for a 
week or two, and if you are not better paid than this, I 
can tell you of a master who will give you a fairer 
wage." Several Saturdays came round, but no advance 
was made on the guinea a week ; and then the old work- 
man recommended Clement to ofier himself to Bramah at 
Pimlico, who was always on the look out for first-rate 
mechanics. 

Clement acted on the advice, and took with him some 

Galloway's roof ? " " Yes," said he. " Then you have seen the pa- 
pers?." "No, — what about them?" " Galloway's roof has fallen 
in this morning, and killed eight or ten of the men ! " Keir immedi- 
ately went to bed, and slept soundly till next morning. 



JOSEPH CLEMENT. 297 

of his drawings, at sight of which Bramah immediately 
engaged him for a month ; and at the end of that time he 
had given so much satisfaction, that it was agreed he 
should continue for three months longer at two guineas a 
week. Clement was placed in charge of the tools of the 
shop, and he showed himself so apt at introducing im- 
provements in them, as well as in organizing the work 
with a view to despatch and economy, that at the end of 
the term Bramah made him a handsome present, adding, 
" If I had secured your services five years since, I would 
now have been a richer man by many thousands of 
pounds." A formal agreement for a term of five years 
was then entered into between Bramah and Clement, 
dated the 1st of April, 1814, by which the latter under- 
took to fill the office of chief-draughtsman and superin- 
tendent of the Pimlico Works, in consideration of a salary 
of three guineas a week, with an advance of four shillings 
a week in each succeeding year of the engagement. This 
arrangement proved of mutual advantage to both. Clem- 
ent devoted himself with increased zeal to the improve- 
ment of the mechanical arrangements of the concern, 
exhibiting his ingenuity in many ways, and taking a 
genuine pride in upholding the character of his master for 
turning out first-class work. 

On the death of Bramah, his sons returned from col- 
lege and entered into possession of the business. They 
found Clement the ruling mind there, and grew jealous 
of him to such an extent that his situation became un- 
comfortable ; and by mutual consent he was allowed to 
leave before the expiry of his term of agreement. He 
had no difficulty in finding employment ; and was at once 
taken on as chief draughtsman at Maudslay and Field's, 
where he was of much assistance in proportioning the 

13* 



298 ■ INDUSTEIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

early marine engines, for the manufacture of whicli that 
firm were becoming celebrated. After a short time, he 
became desirous of beginning business on his own account 
as a mechanical engineer. He was encouraged to do tliis 
by the Duke of Northumberland, who, being a great lover 
of mechanics and himself a capital turner, used often to 
visit Maudslay's, and thus became acquainted with Clem- 
ent, whose expertness as a draughtsman and mechanic he 
greatly admired. Being a man of frugal and sober habits, 
always keeping his expenditure very considerably within 
his income, Clement had been enabled to accumulate 
about 5001., which he thought would be enough for his 
purpose ; and he accordingly proceeded, in 1817, to take 
a small workshop in Prospect Place, Newington Butts, 
where he began business as a mechanical draughtsman 
and manufacturer of small machinery, requiring first-class 
workmanship. 

From the time when he took his first gratuitous les- 
sons in drawing from Peter Nicholson, at Glasgow, in 
1807, he had been steadily improving in this art, — the 
knowledge of which is indispensable to whoever aspires 
to eminence as a mechanical engineer, — until, by general 
consent, Clement was confessed to stand unrivalled as a 
draughtsman. Some of the very best di'awings contained 
in the Transactions of the Society of Arts, from the year 
1817 downwards, — especially those requiring the delin- 
eation of any unusually elaborate piece of machinery, — 
proceeded from the hand of Clement. In some of these, 
he reached a degree of truth in mechanical perspective 
which has never been surpassed.* To facilitate his la- 

* See more particularly The Transactions of the Society for the En- 
couragement of Arts, Vol. XXXIII. (1817), at pp. 74, 157, 160, 175, 208 
(an admirable drawing of Mr. James Allen's Theodolite); Vol. XXXVI. 



JOSEPH CLEMENT. 299 

bors, he invented an extremely ingenious instrument, by 
means of wliich ellipses of all proportions, as well as circles 
and right lines, might be geometrically drawn on paper 
or on copper. He took his idea of this instrument from 
the trammel used by carpenters for drawing imperfect 
ellipses ; and when he had succeeded in avoiding the 
crossing of the points, he proceeded to invent the straight- 
line motion. For this invention the Society of Arts 
awarded him their gold medal in 1818. Some years 
later, he submitted to the same Society his invention of 
a stand for drawings of large size. He had experienced 
considerable difficulty in making sucli drawings, and with 
his accustomed readiness to overcome obstacles, he forth- 
with set to work and brought out his new drawing-table. 
As with many other original-minded mechanics, inven- 
tion became a habit with him, and by study and labor he 
rarely failed in attaining the object which he had bent his 
mind upon accomplishing. Indeed, nothing pleased him 
better than to have what he called " a tough job " ; as it 
stimulated his inventive faculty, in the exercise of which 
he took the highest pleasure. Hence mechanical schemers 
of all kinds were accustomed to resort to Clement for help 
when they had found an idea which they desired to em- 
body in a machine. If there was any value in their idea, 
none could be more ready than he to recognize its merit, 
and to work it into shape ; but if worthless, he spoke out 
his mind at once, dissuading the projector from wasting 
upon it further labor or expense. 

(1818), pp. 28, 176 (a series of remarkable illustrations of Mr. Clement's 
own invention of an Instrument for Drawing Ellipses); Vol. XLIII. 
(1825), containing an illustration of the Drawing-Table invented by 
him for large drawings; Vol. XLVI. (1828), containing a series of 
elaborate illustrations of his Prize Turning-Lathe; and XLVIIL (1829), 
containing illustrations of his Self-adjusting Double-Driver Centre- 
Chuck. 



300 INDUSTEIAL BIOGKAPHY. 

One of the important branches of practical mechanics 
to which Clement continued through life to devote him- 
self, was the improvement of self-acting tools, more espe- 
cially of the slide-lathe. He introduced various improve- 
ments in its construction and arrangement, until in his 
hands it became as nearly perfect as it was possible to 
be. In 1818 he furnished the lathe with a slide-rest 
twenty-two inches long, for the purpose of cutting screws, 
provided with the means of self-correction ; and some 
years later, in 1827, the Society of Arts awarded him 
their gold Isis medal for his improved turning-lathe, 
which embodied many ingenious contrivances calculated 
to increase its precision and accuracy in large surface- 
turning. 

The beautiful arrangements embodied in Mr. Clement's 
improved lathe can with difficulty be described in words ; 
but its ingenuity may be inferred from a brief statement 
of the defects which it was invented to remedy, and which 
it successfully overcame. When the mandrill of a lathe, 
having a metal plate fixed to it, turns round with a uni- 
form motion, and the slide-rest which carries the cutter is 
moving from the circmnference of the work to the centre, 
it will be obvious that the quantity of metal passing over 
the edge of the cutter at each revolution, and therefore 
at equal intervals of time, is continually diminishing, in 
exact proportion to the spiral line described by the cutter 
on the face of the work. But in turning metal plates it 
is found very inexpedient to increase the speed of the 
work beyond a certain quantity ; for when this happens, 
and the tool passes the work at too great a velocity, it 
heats, softens, and is ground away, the edge of the cutter 
becomes dull, and the surface of the plate is indented 
and burnished, instead of beino; turned. Hence, loss of 



JOSEPH CLEMENT. 301 

time on the part of the workman, and diminished work 
on the part of the tool, results which, considering the 
wages of the one and the capital expended on the con- 
struction of the other, are of no small importance ; for the 
prime objects of all improvement of tools are, economy 
of time and economy of capital, — to minimize labor and 
cost, and maximize result. 

The defect to Avhich we have referred was almost the 
only remaining imperfection in the lathe, and Mr. Clement 
overcame it by making the machine self-regulating ; so 
that, whatever might be the situation of the cutter, equal 
quantities of metal should pass over it in equal times, — 
the speed at the centre not exceeding that suited to the 
work at the circumference, — while the workman was 
enabled to convert the varying rate of the mandrill into 
a uniform one whenever he chose. Thus the expedients 
of wheels, riggers, and di'ums, of different diameters, by 
which it had been endeavored to alter the speed of the 
lathe-mandrill, according to the hardness of the metal and 
the diameter of the thing to be turned, were effectually 
disposed of. These, though answering very well where 
cylinders of equal diameter had to be bored, and a uni- 
form motion was all that was required, were found very 
inefficient where a plane surface had to be turned ; and 
it was in such cases that Mr. Clement's lathe was found 
so valuable. By its means surfaces of unrivalled correct- 
ness were produced, and the slide-lathe, so improved, be- 
came recognized and adopted as the most accurate and 
extensively applicable of all machine-tools. 

The year after Mr. Clement brought out his improved 
turning-lathe, he added to it his self-adjusting double driv- 
ing centre-chuck, for which the Society of Arts awarded 
him their silver medal in 1828. In introducing this in- 



302 INDUSTRIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

vention to tlie notice of the Society, Mr. Clement said : 
" Although I have been in the habit of turning and mak- 
ing turning-lathes and other machinery for upwards of 
thirty-five years, and have examined the best tunaing- 
lathes in the principal manufactories throughout Great 
Britain, I find it universally regretted by all practical 
men that they cannot turn anything perfectly true be- 
tween the centres of the lathe." It was found by experi- 
ence that there was a degree of eccentricity, and conse- 
quently of imperfection, in the figure of any long cylinder 
turned while suspended between the centres of the lathe, 
and made to revolve by the action of a smgle driver. 
Under such circumstances the pressure of the tool tended 
to force the work out of the right line and to distribute 
the strain between the driver and the adjacent centre, so 
that one end of the cylinder became eccentric with respect 
to the other. By Mr. Clement's invention of the two- 
armed driver, which was self-adjusting, the strain was 
taken from the centre and divided between the two arms, 
which being equidistant from the centre, effectually cor- 
rected all eccentricity in the work. This invention was 
found of great importance in insuring the true turning 
of large machinery, which before had been found a matter 
of considerable difficulty. 

In the same year (1828) Mr. Clement began the mak- 
ing of fluted taps and dies, and he established a mechani- 
cal practice with reference to the pitch of the screw, which 
proved of the greatest importance in the economics of 
manufacture. Before his time, each mechanical engineer 
adopted a thread of his own ; so that when a piece of 
work came under repair, the screw-hob had usually to be 
drilled out, and a new thread was introduced according to 
the usage which prevailed in the shop in which the work 



JOSEPH CLEMENT. 303- 

was executed. Mr. Clement saw a great waste of labor 
in this practice, and he promulgated the idea that every 
screw of a particular length ought to be furnished with 
its appointed number of threads of a settled pitch. Tak- 
ing the inch as the basis of his calculations, he determined 
the number of threads in each case ; and the practice thus 
initiated by him, recommended as it was by convenience 
and economy, was very shortly adopted throughout the 
trade. It may be mentioned that one of Clement's ablest 
journeymen, Mr. Whitworth, has, since his time, been 
mainl)^ instrumental in establishing the settled practice ; 
and Whitworth's thread (initiated by Clement) has be- 
come recognized throughout the mechanical world. To 
carry out his idea, Clement invented his screw-engine 
lathe, with gearing, mandrill, and shding-table wheel- 
work, by means of which he first cut the inside screw- 
tools from the left-handed hobs, — the reverse mode 
having before been adopted, — while in shaping-ma- 
chines he was the first to use the revolving-cutter 
attached to the slide-rest. Then, in 1828, he fluted the 
taps for the first time with a revolving-cutter, — other 
makers having up to that time only notched them. 
Among his other inventions in screws may be men- 
tioned his headless tap, which, according to Mr. Nas- 
myth, is so valuable an invention that, " if he had done 
nothing else, it ought to immortalize him among mechan- 
ics. It passed right through the hole to be tapped, and 
was thus enabled to do the duty of three ordinary screws." 
By these improvements much greater precision was se- 
cured in the manufacture of tools and machinery, accom- 
panied by a greatly reduced cost of production ; the results 
of which are felt to this day. 

Another of Mr. Clement's ingenious inventions was 



304 INDUSTRIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

his planing-macbine, by means of which metal plates 
of large dimensions were planed with perfect truth and 
finished with beautiful accuracy. There is, perhaps, 
scarcely a machine about which there has been more 
controversy than this ; and we do not pretend to be 
able to determine the respective merits of the many 
able mechanics who have had a hand in its invention. 
It is exceedingly probable that others besides Clement 
worked out the problem in their own way, by independent 
methods ; and this is confirmed by the circumstance that 
though the results achieved by the respective inventors 
were the same, the methods employed by them were in 
many respects different. As regards Clement, we find 
that previous to the year 1820 he had a machine in 
regular use for planing the triangular bars of lathes and 
the sides of weaving-looms. This instrument was found 
so useful and so economical in its working, that Clement 
proceeded to elaborate a planing-machine of a more com- 
plete kind, which he finished and set to work in the year 
1825. He prepared no model of it, but made it direct 
from the working drawings ; and it was so nicely con- 
structed, that when put together it went without a hitch, 
and has continued steadily working for more than thirty 
years, down to the present day. 

Clement took out no patent for his invention, relying 
for protection mainly on his own and his workmen's skiU 
in using it. We therefore find no specification of his 
machine at the Patent-Ofiice, as in the case of most 
other capital inventions ; but a very complete account 
of it is to be found in the Transactions of the Society 
of Arts for 1832, as described by Mr. Varley. The prac- 
tical value of the planing-machine induced the Society 
to apply to Mr. Clement for liberty to publish a full 



JOSEPH CLEMENT. 305 

dfiscription of it ; and Mr. Varley's paper was the re- 
sult.* It may be briefly stated that this engineer's 
plane differs greatly from the carpenter's plane, the 
cutter of which is only allowed to project so far as to 
admit of a tliin shaving to be sliced off, — the plane 
working flat in proportion to the width of the tool, and 
its length and straightness preventing the cutter from 
descending into any hollows in the wood. The engineer's 
plane more resembles the turning-lathe, of which indeed 
it is but a modification, working upon the same principle, 
on flat surfaces. The tools or cutters in Clement's ma- 
chine were similar to those used in the lathe, varying in 
like manner, but performing their work in right lines, — 
the tool being stationary and the work moving under it, 
the tool only travelling when making lateral cuts. To 
save time two cutters were moimted, one to cut the 
work while going, the other while returning, both being 
so arranged and held as to be presented to the work in 
the firmest manner, and with the least possible friction. 
The bed of the machine, on which the work was laid, 
passed under the cutters on perfectly true roUers or 
wheels, lodged and held in their bearings as accurately 
as the best mandrill could be, and having set-screws 
acting against their ends, totally preventing all end- 
motion. The machine was bedded on a massive and 
solid foundation of masonry, in heavy blocks, the support 
at all points being so complete as effectually to destroy 
all tendency to vibration, with the object of securing full, 
round, and quiet cuts. The rollers on which the planing- 
machine travelled were so true, that Clement himself 
used to say of them, " If you were to put but a paper 

* Transactions of the Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Vol. 
XLIX. p. 157. 

T 



306 INDUSTRIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

shaving under one of the rollers, it would at once stop 
all the rest." Nor was this any exaggeration, — the 
entire mechanism, notwithstanding its great size, being 
as true and accurate as that of a watch. 

By an ingenious adaptation of the apparatus, which 
will also be found described in the Society of Arts paper, 
the planing-machine might be fitted with a lathe-bed, 
either to hold two centres, or a head with a suitable 
mandrill. When so fitted, the machine was enabled to 
do the work of a turning-lathe, though in a different way, 
cutting cylinders or cones in their longitudinal direction 
perfectly straight, as well as sohds or prisms of any 
angle, either by the longitudinal or lateral motion of the 
cutter ; whUst by making the work revolve, it might be 
turned as in any other lathe. This ingenious machine, 
as contrived by . Mr. Clement, therefore represented a 
complete union of the turning-lathe with the planing- 
machine and dividing-engine, by which turning of the 
most complicated kind might readily be executed. For 
ten years after it was set in motion, Clement's was the 
only machine of the sort available for planing large 
work ; and being consequently very much in request, it 
was often kept going night and day, — the earnings by 
the planing-machine alone during that time forming the 
principal income of its inventor. As it took in a piece 
of work six feet square, and as his charge for planing 
was three-halfpence the square inch, or eighteen shUlings 
the square foot, he could thus earn by his machine alone 
some ten pounds for every day's work of twelve hours. 
We may add that since planing-machines in various 
forms have become common in mechanical workshops, 
the cost of planing does not amount to more than three- 
halfpence the square foot. 



JOSEPH CLEMENT. 307 

The excellence of Mr. Clement's tools, and Hs well- 
known skill in designing and executing work requiring 
unusual accuracy and finish, led to his being employed 
by Mr. Babbage to make his celebrated Calculating or 
Difference Engine. The contrivance of a machine that 
should work out complicated sums in arithmetic with 
perfect precision was, as may readily be imagined, one 
of the most difficult feats of the mechanical intellect. 
To do this was in an especial sense to stamp matter 
with the impress of mind, and render it subservient to 
the highest thinking faculty. Attempts liad been made 
at an early period to perform arithmetical calculations by 
mechanical aids more rapidly and precisely than it was 
possible to do by the operations of the individual mind. 
The preparation of arithmetical tables of high numbers 
involved a vast deal of labor, and even with the greatest 
care errors were unavoidable and numerous. Thus in a 
multiplication-table prepared by a man so eminent as Dr. 
Hutton for the Board of Longitude, no fewer than forty 
errors were discovered in a single page taken at random. 
In the tables of the Nautical Almanac, where the greatest 
possible precision was desirable and necessary, more than 
five hundred errors were detected by one person ; and 
the Tables of the Board of Longitude were found equally 
incorrect. But such errors were impossible to be avoided 
so long as the ordinary modes of calculating, transcribing, 
and printing continued in use. 

The earliest and simplest form of calculating apparatus 
was that employed by the school-boys of ancient Greece, 
called the Abacus ; consisting of a smooth board with a 
narrow rim, on which they were taught to compute by 
means of progressive rows of pebbles, bits of bone or 
ivory, or pieces of silver coin, used as counters. The 



308 INDUSTRIAL BIOGRAPHy. 

same board, strewn over with sand, was used for teacliing 
the rudiments of writing and the principles of geometry. 
The Romans subsequently adopted the Abacus, dividing 
it by means of perpendicular lines or bars, and from the 
designation of calculus which they gave to each pebble 
or counter employed on the board, we have derived our 
English word to calculate. The same instrument con- 
tinued to be employed during the Middle Ages, and the 
table used by the English Court of Exchequer was but 
a modified form of the Greek Abacus, the chequered 
lines across it giving the designation to the Court, which 
still survives. Tallies, from the French word tailler, to 
cut, were another of the mechanical methods employed 
to record computations, though in a very rude way. Step 
by step improvements were made ; the most important 
being that invented by Napier of Merchiston, the in- 
ventor of logarithms, commonly called Napier's bones, 
consisting of a number of rods divided into ten equal 
squares, and numbered, so that the whole, when placed 
together, formed the common multiplication table. By 
these means various operations in multiplication and di- 
vision were performed. Sir Samuel Morland, Gunter, 
and Lamb introduced other contrivances, applicable to 
trigonometry ; Gunter's scale being still in common use. 
The calculating machines of Gersten and Pascal were 
of a different kind, working out arithmetical calculations 
by means of tr»ins of wheels and other arrangements ; 
and that contrived by Lord Stanhope for the purpose of 
verifying his calculations with respect to the National 
Debt was of like character. But none of these will bear, 
for a moment, to be compared with the machine designed 
by Mr. Babbage for performing arithmetical calculations 
and mathematical analyses, as well as for recording the 



JOSEPH CLEMENT. 309 

calculations when made, thereby getting rid entirely of 
individual error in the operations of calculation, tran- 
scription, and printing. 

The French government, in their desire to promote the 
extension of the decimal system, had ordered the con- 
struction of logarithmical tables of vast extent ; but the 
great labor and expense involved in the undertaking pre- 
vented the design from being carried out. It was re- 
served for Mr. Babbage to develop the idea, by means 
of a machine which he called the Difference Engine. 
This machine is of so complicated a character that it 
would be impossible for us to give any intelligible de- 
scription of it in words. Although Dr. Lardner was 
unrivalled in the art of describing mechanism, he occu- 
pied twenty-five pages of the " Edinburgh Review " (Vol. 
59) in endeavoring to describe its action, and there were 
several features in it which he gave up as hopeless. Some 
parts of the apparatus and modes of action are indeed 
extraordinary, — and perhaps none more so than that for 
insuring accuracy in the calculated results, — the ma- 
chine actually correcting itseF, and rubbing itself back 
into accuracy, when the disposition to err occurs, by the 
friction of the adjacent machinery ! When an error is 
made, the wheels become locked and refuse to proceed; 
thus the machine must go rightly or not at all, — an ar- 
rangement as nearly resembling volition as anything that 
brass and steel are likely to accomplish. 

This intricate subject was taken up by Mr. Babbage in 
1821, when he undertook to superintend for the British 
government the construction of a machine for calculating 
and printing mathematical and astronomical tables. The 
model first constructed to illustrate the nature of his in- 
vention produced figures at the rate of forty-four a minute. 



310 INDUSTEIAL BIOGKAPHY. 

In 1823 the Royal Society was requested to report upon 
the invention, and after full inquiry the committee recom- 
mended it as one highly deserving of public encourage- 
ment. A sum of 1,500Z. was then placed at Mr. Bab- 
bage's disposal by the Lords of the Treasury for the 
purpose of enabling him to perfect his invention. It 
was at this time that he engaged Mr. Clement as 
draughtsman and mechanic to embody his ideas in a 
working machine. Numerous tools were expressly con- 
trived by the latter for executing the several parts, and 
workmen were specially educated for the purpose of use- 
ing them. Some idea of the elaborate character of the 
drawings may be formed from the fact that those required 
for the calculating machinery alone — not to mention the 
printing machinery, which was almost equally elaborate 
— covered not less than four hundred square feet of 
surface ! The cost of executing the calculating-machine 
was of course very great, and the progress of the work 
was necessarily slow. The consequence was that the 
government first became impatient, and then began to 
grumble at the expense. At the end of seven years the 
engineer's bills alone were found to amount to nearly 
7,200/., and Mr. Babbage's costs out of pocket to 7,000Z. 
more. In order to make more satisfactory progress, it 
was determined to remove the works to the neighborhood 
of Mr. Babbage's own residence ; but as Clement's claims 
for conducting the operations in the new premises were 
thought exorbitant, and as he himself considered that the 
work did not yield him the average profit of ordinary 
employment in his own trade, he eventually withdrew 
from the enterprise, taking with him the tools which 
he had constructed for executing the machine. The gov- 
ernment also shortly after withdrew from it, and from 



JOSEPH CLEMENT. 311 

that time the scheme Avas suspended, the calculating en- 
gine remaining a heautiftJ but unfinished fragment of a 
great work. Though originally intended to go as far as 
twenty figures, it was only completed to the extent of 
being capable of calculating to the depth of five figures, 
and two orders of differences ; and only a small part of 
the proposed printing machinery was ever made. The 
engine was placed in the museum of King's College in 
1843, enclosed in a glass case, until the year 1862, when 
it was removed for a time to the Great Exhibition, where 
it formed perhaps the most remarkable and beautifully 
executed piece of mechanism, — the combined result of 
intellectual and mechanical contrivance, — in the entire 
collection.* 

Clement was on various other occasions invited to un- 
dertake work requiring extra skill, which other mechanics 

* A complete account of the calculating machine, as well as of an 
anal}i;ical engine afterwards contrived by Mr. Babbage, of stiU greater 
power than the other, will be found in the Bibliotheque Universelle de 
Geneve, of which a translation into English, with copious original notes, 
by the late Lady Lovelace, daughter of Lord Byron, was published in 
the 3d vol. of Taylor's Scientific Memoirs (London, 1843). A history 
of the machine, and of the circumstances connected with its construc- 
tion, will also be found iu Weld's History of the Royal Society, Vol. II. 
369-391. It remains to be added, that the perusal by Messrs. Scheutz 
of Stockholm of Dr. Lardner's account of Jlr. Babbage's engine in the 
Edinburgh Review led those clever mechanics to enter upon the scheme 
of constructing and completing it, and the result is, that their machine 
not only calculates the tables, but prints the results. It took them 
nearly twenty years to perfect it, but when completed the machine 
seemed to be almost capable of thinking. The original was exhibited 
at the Paris Exhibition of 1855. A copy of it has since been secured 
by the English government at a cost of 1,200?., and it is now busily em- 
ployed at Somerset House in working out annuity and other tables 
for the Eegistrar-General. The copy was constructed, with several 
admirable improvements, by the Messrs. Donkin, the well-known 
mechanical engineers, after the working drawings of the Messrs. 
Scheutz. 



312 INDUSTRIAL BIOGEAPHY. 

were unwilling or unable to execute. He was thus al- 
ways full of employment, never being under the ne- 
cessity of canvassing for customers. He was almost 
constantly in his workshop, in which he took great 
pride. His dwelling was over the office in the yard, and 
it was with difficulty he could be induced to leave the 
premises. On one occasion Mr. Brunei, of the Great 
"Western Railway, called upon him to ask if he could 
supply him with a superior steam-whistle for his loco- 
motives, the whistles which they were using giving forth 
very little sound. Clement examined the specimen 
brought by Brunei, and pronounced it to be " mere tal- 
low-chandler's work." He undertook to supply a proper 
article, and after his usual fashion he proceeded to con- 
trive a machine or tool for the express purpose of making 
steam-whistles. They were made and supplied, and 
when mounted on the locomotive the effect was indeed 
"screaming." They were heard miles off, and Brunei, 
delighted, ordered a hundred. But when the bill came 
in, it was found that the charge made for them was very 
high, — as much as 401. the set. The company demurred 
at the price, — Brunei declaring it to be six times more 
than the price they had before been paying. " That may 
be," rejoined Clement, "but mine are more than six 
times better. You ordered a first-rate article, and you 
must be content to pay for it." The matter was referred 
to an arbitrator, who awarded the fuU sum claimed. Mr. 
Weld mentions a similar case of an order which Clement 
received from America to make a large screw of given 
dimensions " in the best possible manner," and he accord- 
ingly proceeded to made one with the greatest mathemati- 
cal accuracy. But his bill amounted to some hundreds 
of pounds, which completely staggered the American, 
"who did not calculate on having to pay more than 201. 



JOSEPH CLEMENT. 313 

at the utmost for the screw. The matter was, however, 
referred to arbitrators, who gave their decision, as in the 
former case, in favor of the mechanic* 

One of the last works which Clement executed as a 
matter of pleasure was the building of an organ for his 
own use. It will be remembered that when working as 
a slater at Great Ashby, he had made flutes and clarinets, 
and now in his old age he determined to try his skill at 
making an organ, — in his opinion the king of musical in- 
struments. The building of it became his hobby, and his 
greatest delight was in superintending its progress. It 
cost him about two thousand pounds in labor alone, but he 
lived to finish it, and we have been informed that it was 
pronounced a very excellent instrument. 

Clement was a heavy-browed man, without any polish 
of manner or speech ; for to the last he continued to use 
his strong "Westmoreland dialect. He was not educated 
in a literary sense ; for he read but little, and could write 
with difficulty. He was eminently a mechanic, and had 
achieved his exquisite skill by observation, experience, 
and reflection. His head was a complete repertory of 
inventions, on which he was constantly drawing for the 
improvement of mechanical practice. Though he had 
never more than thirty workmen in his factory, they were 
all of the first class ; and the example which Clement set 
before them of extreme carefulness and accuracy in exe- 
cution rendered his shop one of the best schools of its time 
for the training of thoroughly accomplished mechanics. 
Mr. Clement died in 1844, in his sixty-fifth year; after 
which his works were carried on by Mr. Wilkinson, one 
of his nephews ; and his planing ^machine still continues 
in useful work. 

» History of the Royal Society, II. 374. 
14 



CHAPTER XIV. 

Fox OF Dekbt. — Murray of Leeds. — Egberts 

AND WhITWORTH OF MANCHESTER. 

" Founders and senators of states and cities, lawgivers, extirpers of tyrants, 
fathers of the people, and other eminent persons in civil government, were hon- 
ored but with titles of Worthies or demi-gods ; whereas, such as were inventors 
and authors of new arts, endowments, and commodities towards man's life, were 
ever consecrated amongst the gods themselves." — Bacon, Advancement of 
Learning, 

While such were the advances made in the arts of 
tool-making and engine-construction through the labors 
of Bramah, Maudslay, and Clement, there were other 
mechanics of almost equal eminence who flourished about 
the same time and subsequently in several of the northern 
manufacturing towns. Among these may be mentioned 
James Fox of Derby ; Matthew Murray and Peter Fair- 
bairn of Leeds ; Richard Roberts, Joseph Whitworth, 
James Nasmyth, and William Fairbairn of Manchester ; 
to all of whom the manufacturing industry of Great 
Britain stands in the highest degree indebted. 

James Fox, the founder of the Derby firm of mechan- 
ical engineers, was origiually a butler in the service of the 
Rev. Thomas Gisborne, of Foxhall Lodge, Staffordslaire. 
Though a situation of this kind might not seem by any 
means favorable for the display of mechanical ability, 
yet the butler's instinct for handicraft was so strong that 
it could not be repressed ; and his master not only en- 
couraged him in the handling of tools in his leisure hours, 



JAMES FOX OF DERBY. 315 

but had so genuine an admiration of his skill, as well as 
his excellent qualities of character, that he eventually 
furnished him with the means of beginning business on 
his own account. 

The growth and extension of the cotton, silk, and lace 
trades, in the neighborhood of Derby, furnished Fox with 
sufficient opportunities for the exercise of his mechanical 
skiU ; and he soon found ample scope for its employment. 
His lace machinery became celebrated, and he supplied it 
largely to the neighboring town of Nottingham ; he also 
obtained considerable employment from the great fii'ms of 
Arkwright and Strutt, — the founders of the modern cotton 
manufacture. Mr. Fox also became celebrated for his 
lathes, which were of excellent quality, stiU maintaining 
their high reputation ; and besides making largely for the 
supply of the home demand, he exported much machinery 
abroad, to France, Russia, and the Mauritius. 

The present Messrs. Fox of Derby, who continue to 
carry on the business of the firm, claim for their grand- 
father, its founder, that he made the first planiug-machine, 
in 1814,* and they add that the original article continued 
in use until quite recently. We have been furnished by 
Samuel Hall, formerly a workman at the Messrs. Fox's, 
with the following description of the machine : — "It was 
essentially the same in principle as the planing-machine 
now in general use, although differing in detail. It had 
a self-acting ratchet motion for moving the slides of a 
compound slide-rest, and a self-acting reversing tackle, 
consisting of three bevel wheels, one a stud, one loose on 
the driving shaft, and another on a socket, with a pinion 
on the opposite end of the driving-shaft running on the 
socket. The other end was the place for the driving- 

', October 10th, 1862. 



316 INDUSTRIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

pulley. A clutch -box was placed between the two oppo- 
site wheels, which was made to slide on a feather, so that 
by means of another shaft containing levers and a tum- 
bling ball, the box on reversing was carried from one 
bevel-wheel to the opposite one." The same Jaines Fox 
is also said at a very early period to have invented a 
screw-cutting machine, an engine for accurately dividing 
and cutting the teeth of wheels, and a self-acting lathe. 
But the evidence as to the dates at which these several 
inventions are said to have been made is so conjQiicting, 
that it is impossible to decide with whom the merit of mak- 
ing them really rests. The same idea is found floating at 
the same time in many minds, the like necessity pressing 
upon all, and the process of invention takes place in like 
manner : hence the contemporaneousness of so many in- 
ventions, and the disputes that arise respecting them, as 
described in a previous chapter. 

There are stiU other claimants for the merit of having 
invented the planing-machine ; among whom may be men- 
tioned more particularly Matthew Murray of Leeds, and 
Richard Roberts of Manchester. We are informed by 
Mr. March, the present mayor of Leeds, head of the cele- 
brated tool-manufacturing firm of that town, that when 
he first went to work at Matthew Murray's, in 1814, a 
planing-machine of his invention was used to plane the 
circular part or back of the D valve, which he had by that 
time introduced in the steam-engine. Mr. March says, 
" I recollect it very distinctly, and even the sort of fram- 
ing on which it stood. The machine was not patented, 
and like many inventions in those days, it was kept as- 
much a secret as possible, being locked up in a small room 
by itself, to which the ordinary workmen could not obtain 
access. The year in which I remember it being in use 



MATTHEW MUEEAY OF LEEDS. 317 

was, so far as I am aware, long before any planing- 
macMne of a similar kind had been invented." 

]Mattliew Murray was bom at Stockton-on-Tees in the 
year 1763. His parents were of the working class, and 
Matthew, like the other members of the family, was 
brought up with the ordinary career of labor before him. 
When of due age his father apprenticed him to the trade 
of a blacksmith, in which he very soon acquired consid- 
erable expertness. He married before his term had ex- 
pired ; after which, trade being slack at Stockton, he 
found it necessary to look for work elsewhere. Leaving 
his wife behind him, he set out for Leeds with his bundle 
on his back, and after a long journey on foot, he reached 
that town with not enough money left in his pocket to 
pay for a bed at the Bay Horse inn, where he put up. 
But telling the landlord that he expected work at Mar- 
shall's, and seeming to be a respectable young man, the 
landlord trusted him ; and he was so fortunate as to ob- 
tain the job which he sought at Mr. Marshall's, who was 
then beginning the manufacture of flax, for which the firm 
has since become so famous. 

Mr. Marshall was at that time engaged in improving 
the method of manufacture,* and the young blacksmith 

* We are informed in Mr. Longstaffe's Annals and Characteristics 
of Darlington that the spinning of flax by machinery was first begun 
by one John Kendrew, an ingenious self-taught mechanic of that town, 
who invented a machine for the purpose, for which he took out a patent 
in 1787. Mr. Marshall went over from Leeds to see his machine, and 
agreed to give him so much per spindle for the right to use it. But 
ceasing to pay the patent right, Kendrew commenced an action against 
him for a sum of nine hundred pounds, alleged to be due imder the 
agi-eement. The claim was disputed, and Kendrew lost his action; 
and it is added in Longstaffe's Annals, that even had he succeeded, it 
would have been of no use ; for Mr. Marshall declared that he had not 
then the money wherewith to pay him. It is possible that Matthew 



318 INDUSTEIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

was so fortunate, or rather so dexterous, as to be able to 
suggest several improvements in tbe machinery which 
secured the approval of his employer, who made him a 
present of 20?., and very shortly promoted him to be the 
first mechanic in the workshop. On this stroke of good 
fortune Murray took a house at the neighboring village of 
Beeston, sent to Stockton for his wife, who speedily joined 
him, and he now felt himself fairly started in the world. 
He remained with Mr. Marshall for about twelve years, 
during which he introduced numerous improvements in 
the machinery for spinning flax, and obtained the reputa- 
tion of being a first-rate mechanic. This induced Mr. 
James Fenton and Mr. David Wood to offer to join him 
in the establishment of an engineering and machine-mak- 
ing factory at Leeds, which he agreed to, and operations 
were commenced at Holbeck in the year 1795. 

As Mr. Murray had obtained considerable practical 
knowledge of the steam-engine while working at Mr. 
Marshall's, he took principal charge of the engine-build- 
ing department, while his partner Wood directed the 
machine-making. In the branch of engine-building 
Mr. Murray very shortly established a high reputation, 
treading close upon the heels of Boulton and Watt, — 
so close, indeed, that that firm became very jealous of him, 
and purchased a large piece of ground close to his works 
with the object of preventing their extension.* His ad- 
Murray may have obtained some experience of flax-machinery in 
working for Kendrew, which afterwards proved of use to him in Mr. ' 
Marshall's establishment. 

* The purchase of this large piece of gi-ound, known as Camp Field, 
had the effect of " plugging up " Matthew Murray for a time; and it 
remained disused, except for the deposit of dead dogs and other rub- 
bish, for more than half a century. It has only been enclosed during 
the present year, and now forms part of the works of Messrs. Smith, 
Beacock, and Tannet, the eminent tool-makers. 



MATTHEW MURRAY OF LEEDS. 319 

ditions to tlae steam-engine were of great practical value, 
one of which, the self-acting apparatus attached to the 
boiler for the purpose of regulating the intensity of fire 
under it, and consequently the production of steam, is 
still in general use. This was invented by him as early 
as 1799. He also subsequently invented the D slide- 
valve, or at least greatly improved it, while he added to 
the power of the air-pump, and gave a new arrangement 
to the other parts, with a view to the simplification of the 
powers of the engine. To make the D valve work effi- 
ciently it was found necessary to form two perfectly plane 
surfaces, to produce which he invented his planing-ma- 
chine. He was also the first to adopt the practice of 
placing the piston in a. horizontal position in the common 
condensing engine. Among his other modifications in 
the steam-engine, was his improvement of the locomotive 
as invented by Trevithick ; and it ought to be remem- 
bered to his honor that he made the first locomotive that 
regularly worked upon any railway. This was the en- 
gine erected by him for Blenkinsop, to work the Middle- 
ton colliery railway near Leeds, on which it began to run 
in 1812, and continued in regular use for many years. 
In this engine he introduced the double cylinder, — Tre- 
vithick's engine being provided with only one cylinder, 
the defects of which were supplemented by the addition 
of a fly-wheel to carry the crank over the dead points. 

But Matthew^ Murray's most important inventions, con- 
sidered in their effects on manufacturing industry, were 
those connected with the machinery for heckling and 
spinning flax, which he very greatly improved. His 
heckling machine obtained for him the prize of the gold 
medal of the Society of Arts ; and this, as well as his 
machine for wet flax-spinning by means of sponge 



320 INDUSTEIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

weights, proved of the greatest practical value. At the 
time when these inventions were made, the flax trade 
was on the point of expiring, the spinners being unable 
to produce yarn to a profit ; and their almost immediate 
effect was to reduce the cost of production, to improve 
immensely the quality of the manufacture, and to estab- 
lish the British liaen trade on a solid foundation. The 
production of flax-machinery became an important branch 
of manufacture at Leeds, large quantities being made for 
use at home as well as for exportation, giving employment 
to an increasing number of highly skilled mechanics.* 
Mr. Murray's faculty for organizing work, perfected by 
experience, enabled Mm also to introduce many valuable 
improvements in the mechanics of manufacturing. His 
pre-eminent skill in mill-gearing became generally ac- 
knowledged, and the effects of his labors are felt to this 
day in the extensive and still thi'iving branches, of indus- 
try which his ingenuity and ability mainly contributed to. 
establish. All the machine-tools used in his establish- 
ment were designed by himself, and he was most careful 
in the personal superintendence of all the details of their 
construction. Mr. Murray died at Leeds, in 1826, in his 
sixty-thii'd year. 

We have not yet exhausted the list of claimants to the 
invention of the planing-machine, for we find still an- 
other in the person of Eichard Roberts of Manchester, 
one of the most prolific of modern inventors. Mr. Rob- 
erts has, indeed, achieved so many undisputed inventions, 
that he can readily afford to divide the honor in this case 

* Among more recent improvers of flax-machinery, the late Sir 
Peter Fairbaim is entitled to high merit : the work turned out by 
him being of first-rate excellence, embodying numerous inventions 
and improvements of great value and importance. 



EICHAED ROBERTS OF MANCHESTER. 321 

with others. He has contrived things so various as the 
self-acting mule and the best electro-magnet, wet gas- 
meters and dry planing-machines, iron billiard-tables and 
turret-cloclcs, the centrifugal railway and the driU slot- 
ting-machine, an apparatus for making cigars and ma- 
chinery for the propulsion and equipment of steamships ; 
so that he may almost be regarded as the Admirable 
Crichton of modem mechanics. 

Richard Roberts was born in 1789, at Carreghova in 
the parish of Llanymynech. His father was by trade a 
shoemaker, to which he occasionally added the occupation 
of toll-keeper. The house in which Richard was born 
stood upon the border line which then divided the coun- 
ties of Salop and Montgomery ; the front door opening in 
the one county, and the back door in the other. Richard, 
when a boy, received next to no educa,tion, and as soon as 
he was o£ fitting age was put to common laboring work. 
For some time he worked in a quarry near his father's 
dwelling ; but being of an ingenious turn, he occupied his 
leisure in making various articles of mechanism, partly 
for amusement and partly for profit. One of his first 
achievements, while working as a quarryman, was a spin- 
ning-wheel, of which he was very proud, for it was con- 
sidered " a good job." Thus he gradually acquired dex- 
terity in handling tools, and he shortly came to entertain 
the ambition of becoming a mechanic. 

There were several iron-works in the neighborhood, 
and thither he went in search of employment. He suc- 
ceeded in finding work as a pattern-maker at Bradley, 
near Bilston, under John Wilkinson, the famous iron- 
master, — a man of great enterprise as well as mechani- 
cal skill ; for he was the first man, as already stated, that 
Watt could find capable of boring a cylinder with any 



322 INDUSTEIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

approach to truth, for the purposes of his steam-engines. 
After acquiring some practical knowledge of the art of 
working in wood as well as iron, Roberts proceeded to 
Birmingham, where he passed through diflPerent shops, 
gaining further experience in mechanical practice. He 
tried his hand at many kinds of work, and acquired con- 
siderable dexterity in each. He was regarded as a sort 
of jack-of-all -trades ; for he was a good turner, a tolera- 
ble wheelwright, and could repair mill-work at a pinch. 

He next moved northward to the Horsley iron-works, 
Tipton, where he was working as a pattern-maker when 
he had the misfortune to be drawn in his own county for 
the miUtia. He immediately left his work and made his 
way homeward to Llanymynech, determined not to be a 
soldier or even a militiaman. But home was not the 
place for him to rest in, and after bidding a hasty adieu 
to his father, he crossed the country northward on foot 
and reached Liverpool, in the hope of finding work there. 
FaiUng in that, he set out for Manchester, and reached it 
at dusk, very weary and very miry, in consequence of the 
road being in such a wretched state of mud and ruts. He 
relates that, not knowing a person in the town, he went 
up to an apple-stall ostensibly to buy a pennyworth of 
apples, but really to ask the stall-keeper if he knew of 
any person in want of a hand. Was there any turner in 
the neighborhood ? Yes, round the corner. Thither he 
went at once, found the wood-turner in, and was promised 
a job on the following morning. He remained with the 
turner for only a short time, after which he found a job 
in Salford, at lathe and tool-making. But hearing that 
the militia warrant-officers were still searching for him, he 
became uneasy and determined to take refuge in London. 

He trudged all the way on foot to that great hiding- 



RICHARD ROBERTS OF MANCHESTER. 323 

place, and first tried Holtzapffel's, the famous tool-maker's, 
but failing in his application he next went to Maudslay's 
and succeeded in getting employment. He worked there 
for some time, acquiring much valuable practical knowl- 
edge in the use of tools, cultivating his skill by contact 
with first-class workmen, and benefiting by the spirit of 
active contrivance which pervaded the Maudslay shops. 
His manual dexterity greatly increased, and, his inventive 
ingenuity folly stimulated, he determined on making his 
way back to Manchester, which, even more than London 
itself, at that time presented abundant openings for men 
of mechanical skill. Hence we find so many of the best 
mechanics trained at Maudslay's and Clement's, — Nas- 
myth, Lewis, Muir, Roberts, Whitworth, and others, — 
shortly rising into distinction there as leading mechani- 
cians and tool-makers. 

The m^re enumeration of the various results of Mr. 
Eoberts's inventive skill during the period of his settle- 
ment at Manchester as a mechanical engineer would oc- 
cupy more space than we can well spare. But we may 
briefly mention a few of the more important. In 1816, 
while carrying on business on his own account in Deans- 
gate, he invented his improved sector for correctly sizing 
wheels in blank previously to their being cut, which is 
still extensively used. In the same year he invented his 
improved screw-lathe ; and in the following year, at the 
request of the boroughreeve and constables of Manches- 
ter, he contrived an oscillating and rotating wet gas-meter 
of a new kind, which enabled them to sell gas by meas- 
ure. This was the first meter in which a water lute was 
applied to prevent the escape of gas by the index shaft, 
the want of which, as well as its great complexity, had 
prevented the only other gas-meter then in existence 



324 INDUSTRIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

from working satisfactorily. The water lute was imme- 
diately adopted by the patentee of that meter. The 
planing-machine, though claimed, as we have seen, by 
many inventors, was constructed by Mr. Roberts after an 
original plan of his own in 1817, and became the tool 
most generally employed in mechanical workshops, — 
acting by means of a chain and rack, — though it has 
since been superseded to some extent by the planing- 
machine of Whitworth, which works both ways upon an 
endless screw. Improvements followed in the slide-lathe 
(giving a large range of speed with increased diameters 
for the same size of headstocks, &c.), in the wheel-cutting 
engine, in the scale-beam (by which, with a load of 2 oz. 
on each end, the fifteen-hundi-edth part of a grain could 
be indicated), in the broaching-machine, the slotting-ma- 
chine, and other engines. 

But the inventions by which his fame became most 
extensively known arose out of circumstances connected 
with the cotton manufactures of Manchester and the neigh- 
borhood. The great improvements which he introduced 
in the machine for making weaver's reeds led to the 
formation of the firm of Sharp, Roberts, & Co., of which 
IVIr. Roberts was the acting mechanical partner for many 
years. Not less important were his improvements in 
power-looms for weaving fustians, which were exten- 
sively adopted. But by far the most famous of his inven- 
tions was unquestionably his self-acting mule, one of the 
most elaborate and beautiful pieces of machinery ever 
contrived. Before its invention, the working of the en- 
tire machinery of the cotton-mill, as well as the employ- 
ment of the piecers, cleaners, and other classes of opera- 
tives, depended upon the spinners, who, though receiving 
the highest rates of pay, were by much the most given to 



EICHAKD EOBEKTS OF MANCHESTER. 325 

strikes ; and they were frequently accustomed to turn out 
in times when trade was brisk, thereby bringing the whole 
operations of the manufactories to a standstill, and throw- 
ing all the other operatives out of employment. A long- 
continued strike of this sort took place in 1824, when the 
idea occurred to the masters that it might be possible to 
make the spinning-mules run out and in at the proper 
speed by means of self-acting machinery, and thus render 
them in some measure independent of the more refrac- 
tory class of their workmen. It seemed, however, to be 
80 very difficult a problem, that they were by no means 
sanguine of success in its solution. Some time passed 
before they could find any mechanic willing so much as 
to consider the subject. jVIr. Ashton of Staley bridge 
made every effort with this object, but the answer he got 
was uniformly the same. The thing was declared to be 
impracticable and impossible. Mr. Ashton, accomj^nied 
by two other leading spinners, called on Sharp, Roberts, 
& Co., to seek an interview with Mr. Roberts. They 
introduced the subject to him, but he would scarcely listen 
to their explanations, cutting them short with the remark 
that he knew nothing whatever about cotton-spinning. 
They insisted, nevertheless, on explaining to him what 
they required, but they went away without being able to 
obtain from him any promise of assistance in bringing out 
the required machine. 

The strike continued, and the manufacturers again 
called upon Mr. Roberts, but with no better result. A 
third time they called, and appealed to Mr. Sharp, the 
capitalist of the firm, who promised to use his best en- 
deavors to induce his mechanical partner to take the 
matter in hand. But INIr. Roberts, notwithstanding his 
reticence, had been occupied in carefully pondering the 



326 INDUSTRIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

subject since Mr. Ashton's first interview with him. The 
very difficulty of the problem to be solved had tempted 
him boldly to grapple with it, though he would not hold 
out the slightest expectation to the cotton-spinners of his 
being able to help them in their emergency until he saw 
his way perfectly clear. That time had now come ; and 
when Mr. Sharp introduced the subject, he said he had 
turned the matter over and thought he could construct 
the required self-acting machinery. It was arranged that 
he should proceed Avith it at once, and after a close study 
of four months he brought out the machine now so exten- 
sively known as the self-acting mule. The invention was 
patented in 1825, and was perfected by subsequent addi- 
tions, which were also patented. 

Like so many other inventions, the idea of the self- 
acting mule was not new. Thus Mr. "William Strutt of 
Derljy, the father of Lord Belper, invented a machine of 
this sort at an early period ; Mi". "William Kelly, of the 
New Lanark Mills, invented a second ; and various other 
projectors tried their skill in the same direction ; but none 
of these inventions came into practical use. In such cases 
it has become generally admitted that the real inventor 
is not the person who suggests the idea of the invention, 
but he who first works it out into a practicable process, 
and so makes it of practical and commercial value. This 
was accomplished by Mr. Roberts, who, working out the 
idea after his own independent methods, succeeded in 
making the first self-acting mule that would really act as 
such ; and he is therefore fairly entitled to be regarded as 
its inventor. 

By means of this beautiful contrivance, spindle-car- 
riages, bearing hundreds of spindles, run themselves out 
and in by means of automatic machinery, at the proper 



RICHARD ROBERTS OF MANCHESTER. 327 

speed, without a hand touching them ; the only lahor re- 
quired being that of a few boys and girls to watch them 
and mend the broken threads when the carriage recedes 
from the roller beam, and to stop it when the cop is com- 
pletely formed, as is indicated by the bell of the counter 
attached to the working gear. Mr. Baines describes the 
self-acting mule while at work as " drawing out, twisting, 
and winding up many thousand threads, with unfailing 
precision and indefatigable patience and strength, — a 
scene as magical to the eye which is not familiarized with 
it as the effects have been marvellous in augmenting the 
wealth and population of the country." * 

Ml". Roberts's great success with the self-acting mule 
led to his being ' often appealed to for help in the me- 
chanics of manufacturing. In 1826, the year after his 
patent was taken out, he was sent for to Mulhouse, in 
Alsace, to design and arrange the machine establishinent 
of Andre Koechlin & Co. ; and in that and the two sub- 
sequent years he fairly set the works agoing, instructing 
the workmen in the manufacture of spinning-machinery, 
and thus contributing largely to the success of the French 
cotton manufacture. In 1832 he patented his invention 
of the Eadial Arm for " winding on " in the self-acting 
mule, now in general use ; and in future years he took 
out sundry patents for roving, slubbing, spinning, and 
doubling cotton and other fibrous materials ; and for 
weaving, beetling, and mangling fabrics of various sorts. 

A considerable branch of business carried on by the 
firm of Sharp, Robei'ts, & Co. was the manufacture of 
iron biUiard-tables, which were constructed with almost 
perfect truth by means of Mr, Roberts's planing-machine, 

* Edward Baikes, Esq., M. P., History of the Cotton Manufac- 
tttre, 212. 



328 INDUSTEIAL BIOGKAPHY. 

and became a large article of export. But a much more 
important and remunerative department was the manu- 
facture of locomotives, which was begun by the firm 
shortly after the opening of the Liverpool and Manches- 
ter Railway had marked this as one of the chief branches 
of future mechanical engineering. Mr. Roberts adroitly 
seized the opportunity presented by this new field of in- 
vention and enterprise, and devoted himself for a time to 
the careful study of the locomotive and its powers. As 
early as the year 1829 we find him presenting to the 
Manchester Mechanics' Institute a machine exhibiting 
the nature of friction upon railroads, in solution of the 
problem then under discussion in the scientific journals. 
In the following year he patented an arrangement for 
communicating power to both drivhig-wheels of the loco- 
motive, at aU times in the exact proportions required 
when turning to the right or left, — an arrangement 
which has since been adopted in many road locomotives 
and agricultural-engines. In the same patent will be 
found embodied his invention of the steam-brake, which 
was also a favorite idea of George Stephenson, since 
elaborated by Mr. MacConnell of the London and North- 
western Railway. In 1834 Sharp, Roberts, & Co. be- 
gan the manufacture of locomotives on a large scale ; and 
the compactness of their engines, the excellence of their 
workmanship, and the numerous original improvements 
introduced in them, speedily secured for the engines of 
the Atlas firm a high reputation and a very large demand. 
Among Mr. Roberts's improvements may be mentioned 
his method of manufacturing the crank-axle, of welding 
the rim and tyres of the wheels, and his arrangement and 
form of the wrought-iron framing and axle-guards. His 
system of templets and gauges, by means of which every 



EICHARD KOBEETS OF MANCHESTER. 329 

part of an engine or tender corresponded with that of 
every other engine or tender of the same class, was as 
great an improvement as Maudslay's system of uniformity 
of parts in other descriptions of machinery. 

In connection with the subject of railways, we may 
allude ia passing to Mr. Roberts's invention of the 
Jacquard punching-machine, — a self-actiag tool of great 
power, used for punching any required number of holes, 
of any pitch and to any pattern, with mathematical accu- 
racy, ia bridge or boiler plates. The origin of this inven- 
tion was somewhat similar to that of the self-acting mule. 
The contractors for the Conway Tubular Bridge while un- 
der construction, in 1848, were greatly hampered by com- 
binations amongst the workmen, and they despaired of 
beiug able to finish the girders within the time specified in 
the contract. The punching of the iron plates by hand was 
a tedious and expensive as well as an inaccurate process ; 
and the work was proceeding so slowly that the con- 
tractors found it absolutely necessary to adopt some new 
method of punching if they were to finish the work in 
time. In their emergency they appealed to Mr. Roberts, 
and endeavored to persuade him to take the matter up. 
He at length consented to do so, and evolved the machine 
in question during his evening's leisure, — for the most 
part while quietly sipping his tea. The machine was 
produced, the contractors were enabled to proceed with 
the punching of the plates independent of the refractory 
men, and the work was executed with a despatch, accu- 
racy, and excellence that would not otherwise have been 
possible. Only a few years siuce Mr. Roberts added a 
useful companion to the Jacquard punching-machine, in 
his combined self-acting machine for shearing iron and 
punching both webs of angle or T iron simultaneously to 



330 INDUSTEIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

any required pitch ; thougli this machine, like others 
which have proceeded from his fertile brain, is ahead 
even of this fast-manufactm-ing age, and has not yet come 
into general use, but is certain to do so before many years 
have elapsed. 

These inventions were surely enough for one man to 
have accomplished ; but we have not yet done. The 
mere enumeration of his other inventions would occupy 
several pages. "We shall merely allude to a few of them. 
One was his Tm'ret Clock, for which he obtained the 
tnedal at the Great Exhibition of 1851. Another was 
his Prize Electro-Magnet of 1845. When tliis subject 
was first mentioned to him, he said he did not know any- 
thing of the theory or practice of electro-magnetism, but 
he would try and find out. The result of his trying was 
that he won the prize for the most powerful electro- 
magnet ; one is placed in the museum at Peel Park, 
Manchester, and another with the Scottish Society of 
Arts, Edinburgh. In 1846 he perfected an American in- 
vention for making cigars by machinery ; enabling a boy, 
working one of his cigar-engines, to make as many as 
five thousand in a day. In 1852 he patented improve- 
ments in the construction, propelling, and equipment of 
steamships, which have, we believe, been adopted to a 
certain extent by the Admiralty ; and a few years later, 
in 1855, we find him presenting the Secretary of War 
with plans of elongated rifle projectiles to be used in 
smooth-bore ordnance with a view to utiHze the old- 
pattern gun. His head, like^many inventors of the time, 
being full of the mechanics of war, he went so far as to 
wait upon Louis Napoleon, and laid before him a plan by 
which Sebastopol was to be blown down. In short, upon 
whatever subject he turned his mind, he left the impress 



MR. WHITWOETH OF MANCHESTER. 331 

of his inventive faculty. If it was imperfect, he improved 
it ; if incapable of improvement, and impracticable, he 
invented something entirely new, superseding it alto- 
gether. But with all his inventive genius, in the exer- 
cise of which Mr, Roberts has so largely added to the 
productive power of the country, we regret to say that he 
is not gifted with the commercial faculty. He has helped 
others in their difficulties, but forgotten himself. Many 
have profited by his inventions, without even acknowl- 
edging the obligations which they owed to him. They 
have used his brains and copied his tools, and the 
" sucked orange " is all but forgotten. There may have 
been a want of worldly wisdom on his part, but it is lam- 
entable to think that one of the most prolific and useful 
inventors of his time should in his old age be left to fight 
with poverty. 

Mr. Whitworth is another of the first-class tool-makers 
of Manchester who has turned to excellent account his 
training in the workshops of Maudslay and Clement. He 
has carried fully out the system of uniformity in Screw 
Threads which they initiated; and he has still further 
improved the mechanism of the planiug-machine, enabling 
it to work both backwards and forwards by means of a 
screw and roller motion. His " Jim Crow Machine," so 
called from its peculiar motion in reversing itself and 
working both ways, is an extremely beautiful tool, adapted 
alike for horizontal, vertical, or angular motions. The 
minute accuracy of Mr. Whitworth's machines is not the 
least of their merits; and nothing will satisfy him short 
of perfect truth. At the meeting of the Institute of Me- 
chanical Engineers at Glasgow, in 1856, he read a paper 
on the essential importance of possessing a true plane as 
a standard of reference in mechanical constructions, and 



332 INDUSTEIAL BIOGEAPHY. 

he described elaborately the true method of securing it, 
■ — namely, by scraping, instead of by the ordinary process 
of grinding. At the same meeting he exhibited a machine 
of his invention, by which he stated that a difference of 
the millionth part of an inch in length could at once be 
detected. He also there urged his favorite idea of uni- 
foiTnity, and proper gradations of size of parts, in all the 
various branches of the mechanical arts, as a chief means 
towards economy of production, — a principle, as he 
showed, capable of very extensive application. To show 
the progress of tools and machinery in his own time, Mr. 
Whitworth cited the fact that thirty years since the cost 
of labor for making a surface of cast-iron true, — one of 
the most important operations in mechanics, — by chip- 
ping and filing by the hand, was 12s. a square foot; 
whereas it is now done by the planing-machine at a 
cost for labor of less that a penny. Then in machinery, 
pieces of seventy-four reed printing-cotton cloth of twen- 
ty-nine yards each could not be produced at less cost than 
30s. 6c?. per piece ; whereas the same description is now 
sold for 3s. 9 c?. Mr. Whitworth has been among the 
most effective workers in this field of improvement, his 
tools taking the first place in point of speed, accuracy, and 
finish of work, in which respects they challenge competi- 
tion with the world. Mr. Whitworth has of late years 
been applying himself with his accustomed ardor to the 
development of the powers of rifled guns and projectiles, 
— a branch of mechanical science in which he confessedly 
holds a foremost place, and in perfecting which he is still 
occupied. 



CHAPTEE XV. 

James Nasmtth. 



" By Hammer and Hand 
All Arts doth stand." 

Hammermen's Motto. 



The founder of the Scotch family of Naesmyth is said 
to have derived his name from the following circumstance. 
In the course qf the feuds which raged. for some time be- 
tween the Scotch kings and their powerful subjects the 
Earls of Douglas, a rencontre took place one day on the 
outskirts of a Border village, when the king's adherents 
were worsted. One of them took refuge in the village 
smithy, where, hastily disguising himself, and donning 
a spare leathern apron, he pretended to be engaged in 
assisting the smith with his work, when a party of the 
Douglas followers rushed in. They glanced at the pre- 
tended workman at the anvil, and observed him deliver a 
blow upon it so unskilfully that the hammer-shaft broke 
in his hand. On this one of the Douglas men rushed at 
him, calling out, "Ye 're nae smyth ! " The assailed man 
seized his sword, which lay conveniently at hand, and de- 
fended himself so vigorously that he shortly killed his 
assailant, while the smith brained another with his ham- 
mer ; and a party of the king's men having come to their 
help, the rest were speedily overpowered. The royal 
forces then rallied, and their temporary defeat was con- 
verted into a victory. The king bestowed a grant of land 



334 INDUSTRIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

on his follower " Nae Smyth," who assumed for his arms 
a sword between two hammers with broken shafts, and 
the motto, " Non Arte sed Marte," as if to disclaim the 
art of the smith, in which he had failed, and to emphasize 
the superiority of the warrior. Such is said to be the 
traditional origin of the family of Naesmyth of Posso in 
Peeblesshire, who continue to bear the same name and 



It is remarkable that the inventor of the steam-hammer 
should have so effectually contradicted the name he bears 
and reversed the motto of his family ; for so far from 
being " Nae Smyth," he may not inappropriately be des- 
ignated the very Vulcan of the nineteenth century. His 
hammer is a tool of immense power and pliancy, but 
for which we must have stopped short in many of those 
gigantic engineering works which are among the marvels 
of the age we live in. It possesses so much precision 
and delicacy that it wiU chip the end of an egg resting in 
a glass on the anvil without breaking it, while it delivers 
a blow of ten tons with such a force as to be felt shaking 
the parish. It is therefore with a high degree of appro- 
priateness that Mr. Nasmyth has discarded the feckless 
hammer with the broken shaft, and assumed for his em- 
blem his own magnificent steam-hammer, at the same 
time reversing the family motto, which he has converted 
into " Non Marte sed Arte." 

James Nasmyth belongs to a family whose genius in 
art has long been recognized. His father, Alexander 
Nasmyth of Edinburgh, was a landscape-painter of great 
eminence, whose works are sometimes confounded with 
those of his son Patrick, called the English Hobbema, 
though his own merits are peculiar and distinctive. The 
elder Nasmyth was also an admirable portrait-painter, as 



JAMES NASMYTH. 335 

his head of Burns — the best ever painted of the poet 
— bears ample witness. His daughters, the Blisses Na- 
smyth, were highly skilled painters of landscape, and 
their works are weU known and much prized. James, 
the youngest of the family, inhents the same love of ai't, 
though his name is more extensively known as a worker 
and inventor in ii'on. He was born at Edinburgh, on the 
19th of August, 1808 ; and his attention was early di- 
rected to mechanics by the cii'cumstance of this being one 
of his father's hobbies. Besides being an excellent painter, 
!RIr. Nasmyth had a good general knowledge of architec- 
ture and civil engineering, and could work at the lathe 
and handle tools with the dexterity of a mechanic. He 
employed nearly the whole of his spare time in a little 
workshop which adjoined his studio, where he encouraged 
his youngest son to work with him in all sorts of materi- 
als. Among his visitors at the studio were Professor 
LesHe, Patrick Miller of Dalswinton, and other men of 
distinction. He assisted Mr. MiUer in his early experi- 
ments with paddle-boats, which eventually led to the in- 
vention of the steamboat. It was a great advantage for 
the boy to be trained by a father who so loved excellence 
in all its forms, and could minister to his love of mechanics 
by his own instruction and practice. James used to drink 
in with pleasure and profit the conversation which passed 
between his father and his visitors on scientific and me- 
chanical subjects; and as he became older, the resolve 
grew stronger in him every day that he would be a me- 
chanical engineer, and nothing else. At a proper age he 
was sent to the High School, then as now celebrated for 
the excellence of its instruction, and there he laid the 
foundations of a sound and liberal education. But he has 
himself told the simple story of his early life in such 



336 INDUSTRIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

graphic terms, that we feel we cannot do better than 
quote his own words : * — 

" I had the good luck," he says, " to have for a school 
companion the son of an iron-founder. Every spare hour 
that I could command was devoted to visits to his father's 
iron-foundery, where I delighted to watch the various 
processes of moulding, iron-melting, casting, forging, pat- 
tern-making, and other smith and metal work; and al- 
though I was only about twelve years old at the time, I 
used to lend a hand, in which hearty zeal did a good deal 
to make up for want of strength. I look back to the 
Saturday afternoons spent in the workshops of that small 
foundery as an important part of my education. I did 
not trust to reading about such and auch things ; I saw 
and handled them ; and all the ideas in connection with 
them became permanent in my mind. I also obtained 
there — what was of much value to me in after life — a 
considerable acquaintance with the nature and characters 
of workmen. By the time I was fifteen I could work and 
turn out really respectable jobs in wood, brass, iron, and 
steel: indeed, in the working of the latter inestimable 
material I had at a very early age (eleven or twelve) 
acquired considerable proficiency. As that was the pre- 
lucifer match period, the possession of a steel and tinder- 
box was quite a patent of nobility among boys. So I 
. used to forge old files into ' steels ' in my father's little 
workshop, and harden them and produce such first-rate, 
neat little articles in that line, that I became quite famous 
amongst my school companions ; and many a task have I 

* Originally prepared for John Hick, Esq., C. E., of Bolton, and 
embodied by him in his lectures on " Self-Help," delivered before the 
Holy Trinity Workingmen's Association of that town, on the 18th 
and 20th ]\Iarch, 1862; the account having been kindly corrected by 
Mr. Nasmyth for the present publication. 



JAMES NASMYTH. • 337 

had excused me by bribing tbe monitor, wbose grim sense 
of duty never could witbstand the glimpse of a steel. 

" My first essay at making a steam-engine was when I 
was fifteen. I then made a real working steam-engine, 
If diameter cylinder, and 8-in. stroke, which not only 
could act, but really did some useful work ; for I made 
it grind the oil-colors wliich my father required for his 
painting. Steam-engine models, now so common, were 
exceedingly scarce in those days, and very difficult to be 
had ; and as the demand for them arose, I found it both 
delightful and profitable to make them ; as well as sec- 
tional models of steam-engines, which I introduced for the 
purpose of exhibiting the movements of all the parts, both 
exterior and interior. With the results of the sale of such 
models I was enabled to pay the price of tickets of admis- 
sion to the lectures on natural philosophy and chemistry 
delivered in the University of Edinburgh, About the 
same time (1826) I was so happy as to be employed by 
Professor Leslie in making models and portions of appa- 
ratus required by him for his lectures and philosophical 
investigations, and I had also the inestimable good fortune 
to secure his friendship. His admirably clear manner of 
communicating a knowledge of the fundamental principles 
of mechanical science rendered my intercourse with him 
of the utmost importance to myself. A hearty, cheerful, 
earnest desire to toil in his service, caused him to take 
pleasure in instructing me by occasional explanations of 
what might otherwise have remained obscure. 

" About the years 1827 and 1828 the subject of steam- 
carriages for common roads occupied much of the atten- 
tion of the public. Many tried to solve the problem. I 
made a working model of an engine, which performed so 
well that some friends determined to give me the means 
15 V • 



338 INDUSTRIAL BIOGEAPHY. 

of making one on a larger scale. This I did ; and I shall 
never forget the pleasure and the downright hard work I 
had in producing, in the autumn of 1828, at an outlay of 
601, a complete steam-carriage, that ran many a mUe with 
eight persons on it. After keeping it in action two months, 
to the satisfaction of all who were interested in it, my 
friends allowed me to dispose of it, and 1 sold it at a great 
bargain, after which the engine was used in driving a 
small factory. I may mention that in that engine I em- 
ployed the waste steam to cause an increased di'aught by 
its discharge up the chimney. This important use of the 
waste steam had been introduced by George Stephenson 
some years before, though entirely unknown to me. 

" The earnest desire which I cherished of getting for- 
ward in the real business of life induced me to turn my 
attention to obtaining employment in some of the great 
engineering establishments of the day, at the head of 
which, in my fancy as well as in reality, stood that of 
Henry Maudslay, of London. It was the summit of my 
ambition to get work in that establishment ; but as my 
father had not the means of paying a premium, I deter- 
mined to try what I could do towards attaining my object 
by submitting to Mr. Maudslay actual specimens of my 
capability as a young workman and draughtsman. To 
this end I set to work and made a small steam-engine, 
every part of which was the result of my own handiwork, 
including the casting and the forging of the several parts. 
Tliis I turned out in such a style as I should even now 
be proud of. My sample drawings were, I may say, 
highly respectable. Armed with such means of obtain- 
ing the good opinion of the great Henry Maudslay, on 
the 19th of May, 1829, I sailed for London in a Leith 
smack, ana after an eight days' voyage saw the metropo- 



JA3IES NASMYTH. 339 

lis for the firet time. I made bold to call on Mr, Mauds- 
lay, and told him ray simple tale. He desired me to 
bring my models for him to look at. I did so, and when 
he came to me I could see by the expression of his cheer- 
ful, well-remembered countenance, that I had attained my 
object. He then and there appointed me to be his own 
private workman, to assist him in his little paradise of a 
workshop, furnished with the models of improved machin- 
ery and.engineei'ing tools of which he has been the great 
originator. He left me to arrange as to wages with his 
chief cashier, Mr. Robert Young, and on the first Satur- 
day evening I accordingly went to the counting-house to 
inquire of him about my pay. He asked .me what would 
satisfy me. Knowing the value of the situation I had 
obtained, and having a very modest notion of my worthi- 
ness to occupy it, I said that if he would not consider 
10s. a week too much, I thought I could do very well 
with that. I suppose he concluded that I had some means 
of. my own to live on besides the 10s. a week which I 
asked. He little knew that I had determined not to cost 
my father another farthing when I left home to begin the 
world on my own account. My proposal was at once 
acceded to. And well do I remember the pride and de- 
light I felt when I carried to my three-shillings-a-week 
lodging that night my first wages. Ample they were in 
my idea ; for I knew how little I could live on, and was 
persuaded that by strict economy I could easily contrive 
to make the money support me. To help me in this 
object, I contrived a small cooking apparatus, which I 
forthwith got made by a tinsmith in Lambeth, at a cost 
of Qs., and by its aid I managed to keep the eating and 
drinking part of my private account within 3s. 6d. per 
week, or 4s. at the outside. I had three meat dinners 



S40 INDUSTEIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

a week, and generally four rice and milk dinners, all of 
whicli were cooked by my little apparatus, which I set 
in action after breakfast. The oil cost not quite a half- 
penny per day. The meat dinners consisted of a stew 
of from a' half to three quarters of a lb. of leg of beef, the 
meat costing 3^d. per lb., which, with sliced potatoes and 
a little onion, and as much water as just covered all, with 
a sprinkle of salt and black pepper, by the time I returned 
to dinner at half past six, furnished a repast in every re- 
spect as good as my appetite. For breakfast I had coffee 
and a due proportion of quartern loaf. After the first year 
of my employment under Mr. Maudslay my wages were 
raised to 15s. a week, and I then, but not till then, in- 
dulged in the luxury of butter to my bread. I am the 
more particular in all this, to show ypu that I was a 
thrifty housekeeper, although only a lodger in a 3*. room. 
I have the old appai'atus by me yet, and I shall have 
another dinner out of it ere I am a year older, out of re- 
gard to days that were full of the real romance of life. 

" On the death of Henry Maudslay in 1831, 1 passed 
over to the service of his worthy partner, Mr. Joshua 
Field, and acted as his draughtsman, much to my advan- 
tage, until the end of that year, when I returned to Edin- 
burgh, to construct a small stock of engineering tools for 
the purpose of enabling me to start in business on my own 
account. This occupied me until the spring of 1833, and 
during the interval I was accustomed to take in jobs to 
execute in my little workshop in Edinburgh, so as to ob- 
tain the means of completing my stock of tools.* In June, 

* Most of the tools with which he began business in Manchester 
were made by his own hands in his father's little workshop at Edin- 
burgh. He was on one occasion " hard up" for brass with which to 
make a wheel for his planing-machine. There was a row of old- 



JAMES NASMYTH. 341 

1834, I went to Mancliester, and took a flat of an old 
miU in Dale Street, where I began business. In two 
years my stock had so increased as to overload the floor 
of the old building to such an extent that the landlord, 
Mr. Wrenn, became alarmed, especially as the tenant 
below me — a glass-cutter — had a visit from the end of 
a 20-horse engine beam one morning among his cut tum- 
blers. To set their anxiety at rest, I went out that even- 
ing to !Patricroft and took a look at a rather choice bit of 
land bounded on one side by the canal, and on the other 
by the Liverpool and Manchester Railway. By the end 
of the week I had secured a lease of the site for nine 
hundred and ninety-nine years ; by the end of the month 
my wood-sheds were erected ; the ring of the hammer on 
the smith's anvil was soon heard all over the place ; and 
the Biidgewater Foundery was fairly under way. There 
I toiled right heartily imtil December 31st, 1856, when I 
retired to enjoy in active leisure the reward of a labori- 
ous life, during which, with the blessing of God, I en- 
joyed much true happiness through the hearty love 
which I always had for my profession ; and I trust I 
may be allowed to say, without undue vanity, that I have 
left behind me some useful results of my labors in those 
inventions with which my name is identified, which have 
had no small share in the accomplishment of some of the 
greatest mechanical works of our age." 

If ]Mr. Nasmyth had accomplished nothing more than 

fashioned brass candlesticks standing in bright an-ay on the kitchen 
mantelpiece which he greatly coveted for the puriDose. His father 
was reluctant to give them up; " for," said he, " I have had many a 
crack with. Bums when these candlesticks were on the table." But 
his mother at length yielded; when the candlesticks were at once re- 
cast, and made into the wheel of the planing-machuie, which is stUl 
at work in Manchester. 



342:. INDUSTRIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

the invention of his steam-hammer, it would have been 
enough to found a reputation. Professor Tomlinson de- 
scribed it as " one of the most perfect of artificial ma- 
chines and noblest triumphs of mind over matter that 
modern English engineers have yet developed."* The 
hand-hammer has always been an important tool, and, in 
the form of the stone celt, it was perhaps the first in- 
vented. When the hammer of iron superseded that of 
stone, it was found practicable in the hands of a " cun- 
ning " workman to execute by its mea,ns metal work of 
great beauty and even delicacy. But since the invention 
of cast-iron, and the manufacture of wrought-iron in large 
masses, the art of hammer-working has almost become 
lost ; and great artists, such as Matsys of Antwerp and 
Rukers of Nuremberg,! no longer think it worth their 
while to expend time and skill in working on so humble 
a material as wrought-iron. It is evident from the marks 
of care and elaborate design which many of these early 
works exhibit, that the workman's heart was in his work, 
and that his object was not merely to get it out of hand, 
but to execute it in first-rate artistic style. 

"When the use of iron extended and larger iron-work 
came to be forged, for cannon, tools, and machinery, the 
ordinary hand-hammer was found insufficient, and the 
helve or forge-hammer was invented. This was usually 

* Cyclopcedia of Useful Arts, II. 739. 

t Matsys's beautiful wrought-iron -weU-cover, still standing in front 
of the cathedral at Antwerp, and Rukers's steel or iron chair exhibited 
at South Kensington in 1862, are examples of the beautiful hammer 
work turned out by the artisans of the middle ages. The railings of 
the tombs of Henry VII. and Queen Eleanor in Westminster Abbey, 
the hinges and iron-work of Lincohi Cathedral, of St. George's Chapel 
at AVindsor, and of some of the Oxford colleges, afford equally striking 
illustrations of the skill of our English blacksmiths several centuries 
ago. 



JAMES NASMYTH. 343 

driven by a water-wheel, or by oxen or horses. The tilt- 
hammer was another form in which it was used, the 
smaller kinds being worked by the foot. Among Watt's 
various inventions, was a tilt-hammer of considerable 
power, which he at first worked by means of a water- 
wheel, and afterwards by a steam-engine regulated by a 
fly-wheel. His first hammer of this kind was a hundred 
and twenty pounds in weight ; it was raised eight inches 
before making each blow. Watt afterwards made a tilt- 
hammer for Mr. Wilkinson of Bradley Forge, of 7^ cwt., 
and it made three hundred blows a minute. Other im- 
provements were made in the hammer from time to time, 
but no material alteration was made in the power by which 
it was worked until Mr. Nasmyth took it in hand, and 
applying to it the force of steam, at once provided the 
worker in iron with the most formidable of machine-tools. 
This important invention originated as follows : — 

In the early part of 1837, the directors of the Great 
Western Steamship Company sent Mr. Francis Hum- 
phries, their engineer, to consult Mr. Nasmyth as to some 
engineering tools of unusual size and power, which were 
required for the construction of the engines of the " Great 
Britain " steamship. They had determined to construct 
those engines on the vertical trunk-engine principle, in 
accordance with Mr. Humphries's designs ; and very com- 
plete works were erected by them at their Bristol dock- 
yard for the execution of the requisite machinery, the 
most important of the tools being supplied by iNasmyth 
and Gaskell. The engines were in hand, when a diffi- 
culty arose with respect to the enormous paddle-shaft of 
the vessel, which was of such a size of forging as had 
never before been executed. ]Mr. Humphries applied to 
the largest engineering firms throughout the country for 



344 INDUSTRIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

tenders of tlie price at which, they would execute this 
part of the work, but to his surprise and dismay he found 
that not one of the firms he apphed to would undertake 
so large a forging. In this dilemma he wrote to Mr. 
Nasmyth on the 24th November, 1838, informing him of 
this unlocked for difficulty. " I find," said he, " there is 
not a forge-hammer in England or Scotland powerful 
enough to forge the paddle-shaft of the engines for the 
' Great Britain ! ' Wliat am I to do ? Do you think I 
might dare to use cast-iron ? " 

This letter immediately set Mr. Nasmyth a thinldng. 
How was it that existing hammers were incapable of 
forging a wrought-iron shaft of thirty inches diameter ? 
Simply because of their want of compass, or range and 
fall, as well as power of blow. A few moments' rapid 
thought satisfied him that it was by rigidly adhering to 
the old traditional form of hand-hammer, — of which the 
tUt, though driven by steam, was but a modification, — 
that the difficulty had arisen. When even the largest 
hammer was tilted up to its full height, its range was so 
small, that when a piece of work of considerable size was 
placed on the anvil, the hammer became " gagged," and, 
on such an occasion, where the forging required the most 
powerful blow, it received next to no blow at all, — the 
clear space for fall being almost entirely occupied by the 
work on the anvil. 

The obvious remedy was to invent some method, by 
which a block of iron should be lifted to a sufficient 
height above the object on wliich it was desired to strilie 
a blow, and let the block fall down upon the work, — 
guiding it in its descent by such simple means as should 
give the required precision in the percussive action of the 
falling mass. Following out this idea, Mr. Nasmyth at 



JAMES NASMYTH. 845 

once sketched on paper his steam-hammer, having it 
clearly before him in his mind's eye a few minutes after 
receiving ]\Ir. Humphries's letter narrating his unlooked- 
for difficulty. The hammer, as thus sketched, consisted 
of, first, an anvil on which to rest the work ; second, a 
block of iron constituting the hammer or blow-giving 
part ; third, an inverted steam-cylinder to whose piston- 
rod the block was attached. All that was then required 
to produce by such means a most effective hammer, was 
simply to admit steam in the cylinder. so as to act on the 
under side of the piston, and so raise the block attached 
to the piston-rod, and by a simple contrivance to let the 
steam escape, and so permit the block rapidly to descend 
by its own gravity upon the work then on the anvil. 
Such, in a few words, is the rationale of the steam- 
hammer. 

By the same day's post, Mr. Nasmyth wrote to Mr. 
Humphries, enclosing a sketch of tlie invention by which 
he proposed to forge the " Great Britain " paddle-shaft. 
Mr. Humphries showed it to Mr. Branel, the engineer-in- 
chief of the company, to ]\Ir. Guppy, the managing di- 
rector, and to othei"S interested in the undertaking, by all 
of whom it was heartily approved. 'Mi. Nasmyth gave 
permission to communicate his plans to such forge propri- 
etors as might feel disposed to erect such a hammer to 
execute the proposed work, — the only condition which 
he made being, that in the event of his hammer being 
adopted, he was to be allowed to supply it according to 
his own design. 

The paddle-shaft of the " Great Britain " was, how- 
ever, never forged. About that time, the substitution of 
the Screw for the Paddle-wheel as a means of propulsion 
of steam-vessels was attracting much attention ; and the 
15* 



346 INDUSTRIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

performances of the " Archimedes " were so successful as 
to induce Mr. Brunei to recommend his Directors to adopt 
the new power. They yielded to his entreaty. The great 
engines which Mr. Humphries had designed were accord- 
ingly set aside ; and he was required to produce fresh 
designs of engines suited for screw propulsion. The re- 
sult was fatal to Mr. Humphries. The labor, the anxiety, 
and perhaps the disappointment, proved too much for him, 
and a brain-fever carried him off; so that neither his 
great paddle-shaft nor Mr. Nasmyth's steam-hammer to 
forge it was any longer needed. 

The hammer was left to bide its time. No forge-mas- 
ter would take it up. The inventor wrote to all the 
great firms, urging its superiority to every other tool for 
working malleable iron into all kinds of forge work. 
Thus he wrote and sent illustrative sketches of his ham- 
mer to Accramans and Morgan of Bristol, to the late 
Benjamin Hick and Rushton and Eckersley of Bolton, 
to Howard and Ravenhill of Rotherhithe, and other 
firms ; but unhappily bad times for the iron trade had set 
in ; and although all • to whom he communicated his de- 
sign were much struck with its simplicity and obvious 
advantages, the answer usually given was, " We have not 
orders enough to keep in work the forge-hammers we 
already have, and we do not desire at present to add any 
new ones, however improved." At that time no patent 
had been taken out for the invention. Mr. Nasmyth had 
not yet saved money enough to enable him to do so on 
his own account ; and his partner declined to spend 
money upon a tool that no engineer would give the firm 
an order for. No secret was made of the invention, and, 
excepting to its owner, it did not seem to be worth one 
farthing. 



JAMES NASMYTH. 347 

Such was the unpromising state of affairs, when M. 
Schneider, of the Creusot Iron-Works in France, called 
at the Patricroft works together with his practical me- 
chanic, M. Bourdon, for the purpose of ordering some 
tools of the firm. Mr. Nasmyth was absent on a journey 
at the time, but his partner, Mr. Gaskell, as an act of 
courtesy to the strangers, took the opportunity of showing 
them all that was new and interesting in regard to mech- 
anism about the works. And, among other things, Mr. 
Gaskell brought out his partner's sketch or " Scheme 
book," which lay in a drawer in the office, and showed 
them the design of the steam-hammer, which no English 
firm would adopt. They were much struck with its sim- 
plicity and practical utility ; and M. Bourdon took care- 
ful note of its arrangements. Mr. Nasmyth on his return 
was infoiTued of the visit of MM. Schneider and Bourdon, 
but the circumstance of their having inspected the design 
of his steam-hammer seems to have been regarded by his 
partner as too trivial a matter to be repeated to him ; 
and he knew nothing of the circumstance until his visit 
to France in April, 1840. When passing through the 
works at Creusot with M. Bourdon, Mr. Nasmyth saw a 
crank shaft of unusual size, not only forged in the piece, 
but punched. He immediately asked, " How did you 
forge that shaft ? " M. Bourdon's answer was, " Why, 
with your hammer, to be sure ! " Great indeed was 
Nasmyth's surprise ; for he had never yet seen the ham- 
mer, except in his own drawing ! A little explanation 
soon cleared all up. M. Bourdon said he had been so 
much struck with the ingenuity and simplicity of the 
arrangement, that he had no sooner returned than he set 
to work, and had a hammer made in general accordance 
with the design Mr. Gaskell had shown him ; and that its 



348 INDUSTRIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

performances had answered his every expectation. He 
then took Mr. Nasmyth to see the steam-hammer ; and 
great was his delight at seeing the child of his brain 
in full and active work. It was not, according to Mr. 
Nasmyth's ideas, quite perfect, and he readily suggested 
several improvements, conformable with the original de- 
sign, which M. Bom-don forthwith adopted. 

On reaching England, Mr. Nasmyfh at once wrote to 
his partner telling him what he had seen, and urging that 
the taking out of a patent for the protection of the inven- 
tion ought no longer to be deferred. But trade was still 
very much depressed, and as the Patricroft firm needed 
all their capital to carry on their business, Mr. Gaskell 
objected to lock any of it up in engineering novelties. 
Seeing himself on the brink of losing his property in the 
invention, Mr. Nasmyth applied to his brother-in-law, 
"William Bennett, Esq., who advanced him the requisite 
money for the pui-pose, — about 280Z., — and the patent 
was secured in June, 1840. The first hammer, of thirty 
cwt., was made for the Patricroft works, with the con- 
sent of the partners ; and in the course of a few weeks it 
was in full work. The precision and beauty of its action, 
— the perfect ease with which it was managed, and the 
untiring force of its percussive blows, — were the admira- 
tion of all who saw it ; and from that moment the steam- 
hammer became a recognized power in modern mechanics. 
The variety or gradation of its blows was such, that it 
was found practicable to manipulate a hammer of ten 
tons as easily as if it had only been of ten ounces weight. 
It was under such complete control that while descending 
with its greatest momentum, it could be arrested at any 
point with even greater ease than any instrument used by 
hand. While capable of forging an Armstrong hundred- 



JAMES NASMYTH. 349 

pounder, or the sheet-anchor for a ship of the line, it 
could hammer a nail, or crack a nut without bruising the 
kernel. When it came into general use, the facilities 
■which it afforded for executing all kinds of forging had 
the effect of greatly increasing the quantity of work done, 
at the same time that expense was saved. The cost of 
making anchors was reduced by at least fifty per cent, 
while the quality of the forging was improved. . Before 
its invention the manufacture of a shaft of fifteen or 
twenty cwt. required the concentrated exertions of a large 
establishment, and its successful execution was regarded 
as a great triumph of skill ; whereas forgings of twenty 
and thirty tons weight are now things of almost every-day 
occurrence. Its advantages were so obvious, that its 
adoption soon became general, and in the course of a few 
years Nasmyth steam-hammers were to be found in 
every well-appointed workshop, both at home and abroad. 
Many modifications have been made in the tool, by 
Condie, Morrison, Naylor, Rigby, and others ; but Nas- 
myth's was the father of them all, and stiU holds its 
ground.* 

Among the important uses to which this hammer has 
of late years been applied, is the manufacture of iron 
plates for covering our ships of war, and the fabrication 



* Mr. Nasmyth has lately introduced, with the assistance of Mr. 
WUson of the Low Moor Iron-Works, a new, exceedingly ingenious, 
and very simple contrivance for working the hammer. By this appli- 
cation any length of stroke, any amount of blow, and any amount of 
variation can be given by the operation of a single lever; and by this 
improvement the machine has attained a rapidity of action and change 
of motion suitable to the powers of the engine, and the form or consis- 
tency of the articles under the hammer. — Mk. Faiebaien's Report on 
the Paris Universal Exhibition of 1855, p. 100. 



350 INDUSTRIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

Whitworth, and Blakely. But for the steam-liammer, 
indeed, it is doubtful whether such weapons could have 
been made. It is also used for the re-manufacture of 
iron in various other forms, to say nothing of the greatly 
extended use which it has been the direct means of effect- 
ing in wrought-iron and steel forgings in every description 
of machinery, from the largest marine steam-engines to 
the most nice and delicate parts of textUe mechanism. 
" It is not too much to say," observes a writer in the En- 
gineer, " that, without Nasmyth's steam-hammer, we must 
have stopped short in many of those gigantic engineering 
works which, but for the decay of all wonder in us, would 
be the perpetual wonder of this age, and which have ena- 
bled our modern engineers to take rank above the gods 
of all mythologies. There is one use to which the steam- 
hammer is now becoming extensively applied by some of 
our manufacturers that deserves especial mention, rather 
for the prospect winch it opens to us than for what has 
already been actually accomplished. We allude to the 
manufacture of large articles in dies. At one manufac- 
tory in the country, railway wheels, for example, are be- 
ing manufactured with enormous economy by this means. 
The various parts of the wheels are produced in quantity 
either by rolling or by dies under the hammer ; these 
parts are brought together in their relative positions in a 
mould, heated to a welding heat, and then by a blow of 
the steam-hammer, furnished with dies, are stamped into 
a complete and all but finished wheel. It is evident that 
wherever wrought-iron articles of a manageable size have 
to be produced in considerable quantities, the same pro- 
cess may be adopted, and the saving effected by the sub- 
stitution of this for the ordinary forging process will 
doubtless erelong prove incalculable. For this, as for 



JAMES NASMYTH. 351 

the many other advantageous uses of the steam-hammer, 
•we are primarily and mainly indebted to ]VIr. Nasmyth. 
It is but right, therefore, that we should hold his name in 
honor. In fact, when we think of the. universal service 
which this machine is rendering us, we feel that some 
special expression of our indebtedness to him would be a 
reasonable and grateful service. The benefit which he 
has conferred upon us is so great as to justly entitle him 
to stand side by side with the few men who have gained 
name and fame as great inventive engineers, and to 
whom we have testified our gratitude, — usually, unhap- 
pily, when it was too late for them to enjoy it." 

Mr. Nasmyth subsequently apphed the principle of the 
steam-hammer in the pile-driver, which he invented in 
1845. Until its production, all piles had been driven by 
means of a small mass of iron falling upon the head of 
the pile with great velocity from a considerable height, — 
the raising of the iron mass by means of the " monkey " 
being an operation that occupied much time and labor, 
with which the results were very incommensurate. Pile- 
driving was, in Mr. Nasmyth's words, conducted on the 
artillery or cannon-baU principle ; the action being exces- 
sive and the mass deficient, and adapted rather for de- 
structive than impulsive action. In his new and beauti- 
ful machine, he apphed the elastic force of steam in rais- 
ing the ram or driving block, on which, the block being 
disengaged, its whole weight of three tons descended on 
the head of the pile, and the process beiag repeated 
eighty times in the minute, the pile was sent home with a 
rapidity that was quite marvellous compared with the old- 
fashioned system. In forming coflfer-dams for the piers 
and abutments of bridges, quays, aijd harbors, and in 
piling the foundations of aU kinds of masonry, the steam 



352 INDUSTEIAL BIOGEAPHY. 

pile-driver was found of invaluable use by the engineer. 
At the first experiment made with the machine, Mr. Nas- 
myth drove a 14:-inch pile fifteen feet into hard ground at 
the rate of 65 blows a minute. The driver was first used 
in forming the great steam dock at Devonport, where the 
results were very striking ; and it was shortly after em- 
ployed by Robert Stephenson in piling the foundations of 
the great High Level Bridge at Newcastle, and the Bor- 
der Bridge at Berwick, as well as in several other of his 
great works. The saving of time effected by this ma- 
chine was very remarkable, the ratio being as 1 to 1800 ; 
that is, a pile could be driven in four minutes that before 
required twelve hours. One of the peculiar features of 
the invention was that of employing the pile itself as the 
support of the steam-hammer part of the apparatus while 
it was being driven, so that the pile had the percussive 
action of the dead weight of the hammer as well as its 
lively blows to induce it to sink into the ground. The 
steam-hammer sat as it were on the shoulders of the pile, 
while it dealt forth its ponderous blows on the pile-head 
at the rate of eighty a minute, and as the pile sank, the 
hammer followed it down with never relaxing activity 
until it was driven home to the required depth. One of 
the most ingenious contrivances employed in the di'iver, 
which was also adopted in the hammer, was the use of 
steam as a buffer in the upper part of the cylinder, which 
had the effect of a recoil spring, and greatly enhanced the 
force of the downward blow. 

In 1846, JVIr. Nasmyth designed a form of steam-ei> 
gine after that of his steam-hammer, which has been 
extensively adopted all over the world for screw-ships of 
all sizes. The pyramidal form of this engine, its great 
simplicity and get-at-ability of parts, together with the 



JAMES NASMYTH. 353 

circumstance that all the weighty parts of the engine are 
kept low, have rendered it a universal favorite. Among 
the other labor-saving tools invented by Mr. Nasmyth, 
may be mentioned the well-known planing-machine for 
small work, called " Nasmyth's Steam Arm," now used in 
every large workshop. It was contrived for the purpose 
of executing a large order for locomotives received from 
the Great "Western Railway, and was found of great use 
in accelerating the work, especially in planing the links, 
levers, connecting-rods, and smaller kinds of wrought-iron 
work in those engines. His circular cutter for toothed 
wheels was another of his handy inventions, which shortly 
came into geiieral use. In iron-founding also he intro- 
duced a valuable practical improvement. The old mode 
of pouring the molten metal into the moulds was by 
means of a large ladle with one or two cross handles 
and levers ; but many dreadful accidents occurred through 
a slip of the hand, and Mr. Nasmyth resolved, if possible, 
to prevent them. The plan he adopted was to fix a 
worm-wheel on the side of the ladle, into which a worm 
was geared, and by this simple contrivance one man was 
enabled to move the largest ladle on its axis with perfect 
ease and safety. By this means the work was more 
promptly performed, and accidents entirely avoided. 

Mr. Nasmyth's skill in invention was backed by great 
energy and a large fund of common sense, — qualities not 
often found united. These proved of much service to the 
concern of which he was the head, and indeed constituted 
its vital force. The firm prospered as it deserved ; and 
they executed orders not only for England, but for most 
countries in the civilized world. Mr. Nasmyth had the 
advantage of being trained in a good school, — that of 
Henry Maudslay, — where he had not only learnt handi- 



354 INDUSTEIAL BIOGKAPHY. 

craft under tlie eye of that great meclianic, but the art of 
organizing labor, and (what is of great value to an em- 
ployer) knowledge of the characters of workmen. Yet 
the Nasmyth firm were not without their troubles as re- 
spected the mechanics in their employment, and on one 
occasion they had to pass through the ordeal of a very 
formidable strike. The manner in which the inventor 
of the steam-hammer literally " Scotched " this strike was 
very characteristic. 

A clever young man employed by the firm as a brass- 
founder being found to have a peculiar capacity for skilled 
mechanical work, had been advanced to the lathe. The 
other men objected to his being so employed on the ground 
that it was against the rules of the trade. " But he is a 
first-rate workman," replied the employers, " and we think 
it right to advance a man according to his conduct and 
his merits." "No matter," said the workmen, "it is 
against the rules, and if you do not take the man from 
the lathe, we must turn out." " Very well ; we hold to 
our right of selecting the best men for the best places, 
and we will not take the man from the lathe." The con- 
sequence was a general turn out. Pickets were set about 
the works, and any stray men who went thither to seek 
employment were waylaid, and if not induced to turn 
back, were maltreated or annoyed until they were glad 
to leave. The works were almost at a standstill. This 
state of things could not be allowed to go on, and the 
head of the Brm bestirred himself accordingly with his 
usual energy. He went down to Scotland, searched all 
the best mechanical workshops there, and after a time 
succeeded in engaging sixty-four good hands. He for- 
bade them coming by driblets, but held them together 
until there was a full freight ; and then they came, with 



JAMES NASMYTH. ' 355 

their wives, families, chests of drawers, and eight-day 
clocks, in a steamboat specially hired for their trans- 
port from Greenock to Liverpool. From thence they 
came by special train to Patricroft, where houses were 
in readiness for their reception. The arrival of so numer- 
ous, well-dressed, and respectable a corps of workmen and 
their families was an event in the neighborhood, and could 
not fail to strike the " pickets " with surprise. Next morn- 
ing the sixty-four Scotchmen assembled in the yard at 
Patricroft, and after giving " three cheers," went quietly 
to their work. The " picketing " went on for a httle 
whUe longer, but it was of no use against a body of 
strong men who stood "shouther to shouther," as the 
new hands did. It was even bruited about that there 
were " more trains to follow ! " It very soon became 
clear that the back of the strike was broken. The men 
returned to their work, and the clever brass-founder con- 
tinued at his turning-lathe, from which he speedily rose 
to still higher employment. 

Notwithstanding the losses and suffering occasioned by 
strikes, Mr. Nasmyth holds the opinion that they have on 
the whole produced much more good than evil. They 
have served to stimulate invention in an extraordinary 
degree. Some of the most important labor-saving pro- 
cesses now in common use are directly traceable to them. 
In the case of many of our most potent self-acting tools 
and machines, manufacturers could not be induced to 
adopt them until compelled to do so by strikes. This 
was the case with the self-acting mule, the wool-combing 
machine, the planing-machine, the slotting-machine, Na- 
smyth's steam-arm, and many others. Thus, even in the 
mechanical world, there may be " a soul of goodness in 
things evil." 



356 INDUSTEIAL BIOGEAPHY. 

Mr. Nasmyth retired from business in December, 1856. 
He had the moral courage to come out of the groove which 
he had so laboriously made for himself, and to leave a large 
and prosperous business, saying, " I have now enough of 
this world's goods ; let younger men have their chance." 
He settled down at his rural retreat in Kent, but not to 
lead a life of idle ease. Industry had become his habit, 
and active occupation was necessary to his happiness. 
He fell back upon the cultivation of those artistic tastes 
which are the heritage of his family. When a boy at the 
High School of Edinburgh, he was so skilful in making 
pen and ink illustrations on the margins of the classics, 
that he thus often purchased from his monitors exemption 
from the lessons of the day. Nor had he ceased to culti- 
vate the art during his residence at Patricroft, but was 
accustomed to fall back upon it for relaxation and enjoy- 
ment amid the pursuits of trade. That he possesses re- 
markable fertility of imagination, and great skUl in archi- 
tectural and landscape drawing, as well as in the much 
more difficult art of delineating the human figure, will be 
obvious to any one who has seen his works, — more par- 
ticularly his " City of St. Ann's," " The Fairies," and 
" Everybody forever ! " which last was exhibited in Pall 
Mall, among the recent collection of works of Art by 
amateurs and others, for relief of the Lancashire distress. 
He has also brought his common sense to bear on such 
unlikely subjects as the origin of the cuneiform character. 
The possession of a brick from Babylon set him a think- 
ing. How had it been manufactured? Its under side 
was clearly marked by the sedges of the Euphrates upon 
which it had been laid to dry and bake in the sun. But 
how about those curious cuneiform characters ? How had 
writing assumed so remarkable a form ? His surmise was 



JAMES NASMYTH. 357 

this : that the brickmakers, in telling their tale of bricks, 
used the triangular comer of another brick, and by press- 
ing it down upon the soft clay, left behind it the triangu- 
lar mark which the cuneiform character exhibits. Such 
marks repeated, and placed in different relations to each 
other, would readily represent any number. From the 
use of the comer of a brick in writing, the transition was 
easy to a pointed stick with a triangular end, by the use 
of which all the cuneiform characters can readily be pro- 
duced upon the soft clay. This curious question formed 
the subject of an interesting paper read by Mr. Nasmyth 
before the British Association at Cheltenham. 

But the most engrossing of Mr. Nasmyth's later pur- 
suits has been the science of astronomy, in which, by 
bringing a fresh, original mind to the observation of 
celestial phenomena, he has succeeded in making some 
of the most remarkable discoveries of our time. Astron- 
omy was one of his favorite pursuits at Patricroft, and on 
his retirement became his serious study. By repeated 
observations with a powerful reflecting telescope of his 
own construction, he succeeded in making a very careful 
and minute painting of the craters, cracks, mountains, and 
valleys in the moon's surface, for which a Council Medal 
was awarded him at the Great Exhibition of 1851. But 
the most striking discovery which he has made by means 
of his telescope, — the result of patient, continuous, and 
energetic observation, — has been that of the nature of 
the sun's surface, and the character of the extraordinary 
light-giving bodies, apparently possessed of voluntary mo- 
tion, moving across it, sometimes forming spots or hollows 
of more than a hundred thousand miles in diameter. 

The results of these observations were of so novel a 
character that astronomers for some time hesitated to re- 



358 INDUSTRIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

ceive them as facts.* Yet so eminent an astronomer as 
Sir Jolm Herschel does not hesitate now to describe them 
as "a most wonderful discovery." "According to Mr. 
ISTasmyth's observations," says he, " made with a very fine 
telescope of his own making, the bright surface of the sun 
consists of separate, insulated, individual objects or things, 
all nearly or exactly of one certain definite size and shape, 
which is more like that of a willow leaf, as he describes 
them, than anything else. These leaves or scales are not 
arranged in any order (as those on a butterfly's wing are), 
but lie crossing one another in all directions, like what are 
called spills in the game of spilhkins ; except at the bor- 
dei-s of a spot, where they point for the most part inwards 
towards the middle of the spot,t presenting much the sort 
of appearance that the small leaves of some water-plants 
or sea-weeds do at the edge of a deep hole of clear water. 
The exceedingly definite shape of these objects, their exact 
similarity one to another, and the way in which they He 
across and athwart each other (except where they form a 
sort of bridge across a spot, in which case they seem to 
affect a common direction, that, namely, of the bridge 
itself), — all these characters seem quite repugnant to 
the notion of their being of a vaporous, a cloudy, or a 
fluid nature. Nothing remains but to consider them as 

* See Memoirs of the Literary and Philosophical Society of Man- 
chester, 3d series, Vol. I. 407. •• . 

t Sir John Herschel adds: " Spots of not very irregular, and what 
may be called compact form, coverhig an area of between seven and 
eight hundred millions of square miles, are by no means uncommon. 
One spot which I measured in the year 1837 occupied no less than 
three thousand seven hundred and eighty millions, taking in all the 
in-egularities of its form ; and the black space or nucleus in the middle 
of one very nearly round one would have allowed the earth to drop 
through it, leaving a thousand clear miles on either side ; and many 
instances of much larger spots than these are on record." 



JAMES NASMYTH. 359 

separate and independent sheets, flakes, or scales, having 
some sort of solidity. And these flakes, be thej what 
they may, and whatever may be said about the dashing 
of meteoric stones into the sun's atmosphere, &c., are evi- 
dently the immediate sources of the solar light and heat, 
by whatever mechanism or whatever processes they may 
be enabled to develop, and, as it were, elaborate these 
elements from the bosom of the non-luminous fluid in 
which they appear to float. Looked at in this point of 
view, we cannot refuse to regard them as organisms of 
some peculiar and amazing kind; and though it would 
be too daring to speak of such organization as partaking 
of the natui'e of life, yet we do know that vital action is 
competent to develop heat and light, as well as electricity. 
These wonderful objects have been seen by others as well 
as Mr. Nasmyth, so that there is no room to doubt of their 
reality." * 

Such is the marvellous discovery made by the inventor 
of the steam-hammer, as described by the most distin- 
guished astronomer of the age. A writer in the Edin- 
burgh Review, referring to the subject in a recent number, 
says it shows him " to possess an intellect as profound as 
it is expert." Doubtless his training as a mechanic, his 
habits of close observation and his ready inventiveness, 
which conferred so much power on him as an engineer, 
proved of equal advantage to him when laboring in the 
domain of physical science. Bringing a fresh mind, of 
keen perception, to his new studies, and uninfluenced by 
preconceived opinions, he saw them in new and original 
lights ; and hence the extraordinary discovery above de- 
scribed by Sir John Herschel. 

Some two hundred years since, a member of the Nas- 

* Sir John Herschel in Good Words for April, 1863. 



360 INDUSTRIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

myth family, Jean Nasmyth of Hamilton, was bm'nt for a 
witch, — one of the last martyrs to ignorance and super- 
stition in Scotland, — because she read her Bible with 
two pairs of spectacles. Had Mr. Nasmyth himself lived 
then, he might, with his two telescopes of his own making, 
which bring the sun and moon into his chamber for him 
to examine and paint, have been taken for a sorcerer. 
But fortunately for him, and still more so for us, Mr. 
Nasmyth stands before the public of this age as not only 
one of its ablest mechanics, but as one of the most accom- 
plished and original of scientific observei's. 



CHAPTEE XVI. 

"William Fairbairn. 

" In science there is work for all hands, more or less skilled ; and he is usually 
the most fit to occupy the higher posts who has risen from the ranks, and has 
experimentally acquainted himself with the nature of the work to be done in 
each and every, even the humblest department." — J. D. Forbes. 

Thle development of the meclianical industry of Eng- 
land has been so rapid, especially as regards the wonders 
achieved by the machine-tools above referred to, that it 
may almost be said to have been accomplished within the 
life of the present generation. " When I first entered 
this city," said Mr. Fairbairn, in his inaugural address as 
President of the British Association at Manchester in 
1861, "the whole of the machinery was executed by 
hand. There were neither planing, slotting, nor shaping 
machines ; and, with the exception of very imperfect 
lathes and a few drills, the preparatory operations of con- 
struction were eifected entirely by the hands of the work- 
men. Now, everything is done by machine-tools with a 
degree of accuracy which the unaided hand could never 
accomplish. The automaton or self-acting machine-tool 
has within itself an almost creative power ; in fact, so 
great are its powers of adaptation, that there is no opera- 
tion of the human hand that it does not imitate," In 
a letter to the author, Mr. Fairbairn says, •' The great 
pioneers of machine-tool-making were Maudslay, Murray 
of Leeds, Clement and Fqx of Derby, who were ably 
16 



362 INDUSTRIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

followed by Nasmjth, Roberts, and WMtwortli, of Man- 
chester, and Sir Peter Fairbairn of Leeds"; and Mr. 
Fairbairn might well have added, by himself, — for he 
has been one of the most influential and successful of 
mechanical engineers. 

William Fairbairn was born at Kelso on the 19th of 
February, 1787. His parents occupied a humble but re- 
spectable position in life. His father, Andrew Fairbairn, 
was the son of a gardener in the employment of Mr. 
Baillie of Mellerston, and lived at Smailholm, a village 
lying a few miles west of Kelso. Tracing the Fairbaims 
still further back, we find several of them occupying the 
station of " portioners," or small lairds, at Earlston on 
the Tweed, where the family had been settled since the 
days of the Solemn League and Covenant. By his 
mother's side, the subject of our memoir is supposed to 
be descended from the ancient Border family of Douglas, 

While Andrew Fairbairn (William's father) lived at 
Smailholm, Walter Scott was living with his grandmother 
in Smailholm or Sandyknowe Tower, whither he had 
been sent from Edinburgh in the hope that change of air 
would help the cure of his diseased hip-joint ; and An- 
drew, being nine years his senior, and a strong youth for 
his age, was accustomed to carry the little patient about 
in his arms, until he was able to walk by himself At a 
later period, when Miss Scott, Walter's aunt, removed 
from Smailholm to Kelso, the intercourse between the 
families was renewed. Scott was then an Edinburgh ad- 
vocate, engaged in collectmg materials for his Minstrelsy 
of the Scottish Border, or, as his aunt described his pur- 
suit, " running after the auld wives of the country gath- 
erin' havers." He used frequently to read over by the 
fireside in the evening the results of his curious industry, 



WILLIAM FAIEBAIRN. 363 

which, however, were not very greatly appreciated by his 
nearest relatives ; and they did not scruple to declare, 
that for the " Advocate " to go about collecting " ballants " 
was mere waste of time as well as money. 

"William Fairbairn's first schoolmaster was a decrepit 
old man who went by the name of " Bowed Johnnie 
Ker," — a Cameronian, with a nasal twang, which his 
pupils learnt much more readily than they did his lessons 
in reading and arithmetic, notwithstanding a liberal use 
of " the tawse." Yet Johnnie had a taste for music, and 
taught his pupils to sing their reading lessons, which was 
reckoned quite a novelty in education. After a short 
time our scholar was transferred to the parish-school of 
the town, kept by a Mr. White, where he was placed un- 
der the charge of a rather severe helper, who, instead 
of the tawse, administered discipline by means of his 
knuckles, hard as horn, which he applied with a peculiar 
jerk to the crania of his pupils. At this school, Willie 
Fairbairn lost the greater part of the singing accomplish- 
ments which he had acquired under " Bowed Johnnie," 
but he learnt in lieu of them to read from Scott and Bar- 
row's collections of prose and poetry, while he obtained 
some knowledge of arithmetic, in which he proceeded as 
far as practice and the rule of three. This constituted 
his whole stock of school-learning up to his tenth year. 
Out of school-hours he leanit to climb the ruined walls 
of the old abbey of the town, and there was scarcely an 
arch or tower or cranny of it with which he did not 
become familiar. 

When in his twelfth year, his father, who had been 
brought lip to farm-work, and possessed considerable prac- 
tical knowledge of agriculture, was offered the charge of a 
farm at Moy in Eoss-shire, belonging to Lord Seaforth of 



364 INDUSTEIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

BraTian Castle. The farm was of about three hundred 
acres, situated on the banks of the river Conan, some five 
miles from the town of Dingwall. The family travelled 
thither in a covered cart, a distance of two hundred miles, 
through a very wild and hilly country, arriving at their 
destination at the end of October, 1799. The farm, when 
reached, was found overgrown with whins and brushwood, 
and covered in many places with great stones and rocks ; 
it was, in short, as nearly in a state of nature as it was 
possible to be. The house intended for the farmer's re- 
ception was not finished, and Andrew Fairbairn, with his 
wife and five children, had to take temporary refuge in a 
miserable hovel, very unlike the comfortable house which 
they had quitted at Kelso. By next spring, however, the 
new house was ready ; and Andrew Fairbairn set vigor- 
ously to work at the reclamation of the land. After 
about two years' labors it exhibited an altogether dif- 
ferent appearance, and in place of whins and stones 
there were to be seen heavy crops of barley and turnips. 
The barren years of 1800 and 1801, however, pressed 
very hardly on Andrew Fairbairn as on every other far- 
mer of arable land. About that time, Andrew's brother 
Peter, who acted as secretary to Lord Seaforth, and 
through whose influence the former had obtained the 
farm, left Brahan Castle for the West Indies with his 
Lordship, who, — notwithstanding his being both deaf 
and dumb, — had been appointed to the Governorship 
of Barbadoes ; and in consequence of various difficulties 
which occurred shortly after his leaving, Andrew Fair- 
bairn found it necessary to give up his holding, where- 
upon he engaged as steward to Mackenzie of Allengrange, 
with whom he remained for two years. 

While the family lived at Moy, none of the boys were 



WILLIAM FAIRBAIRN. 365 

pnt to school. They could not be spared from the farm 
and the household. Those of them that could not work 
afield were wanted to help to nurse the younger children 
at home. But Andi-ew Fairbairn possessed a great treas- 
ure in his wife, who was a woman of much energy of 
character, setting before her children an example of 
patient industry, thrift, discreetness, and piety, which 
could not fail to exercise a powerful influence upon them 
in. after-life ; and this, of itself, was an education which 
probably far more than compensated for the boys' loss of 
school-culture during their life at Moy. Blrs. Fairbairn 
span and made all the children's clothes, as well as the 
blankets and sheeting ; and, while in the Highlands, she 
not only made her own and her daughters' dresses, and 
her sons' jackets and trousers, but her husband's coats 
and waistcoats ; besides helping her neighbors to cut out 
their clothing for family wear. 

One of William's duties at home was to nurse his 
younger brother Peter, then a delicate child under two 
years old, and to relieve himself of the labor of carrying 
him about, he began the construction of a little wagon in 
which to wheel him. This was, however, a work of some 
difficulty, as all the tools he possessed were only a knife, 
a gimlet, and an old saw. "With these implements, a 
piece of thin board, and a few nails, he nevertheless con- 
trived to make a tolerably serviceable wagon-body. His 
chief difficulty consisted in making the wheels, which he 
conti'ived to surmount by cutting sections from the stem 
of a small alder-tree, and with a red-hot poker he bored 
the requisite holes in their centres to receive the axle. 
The wagon was then mounted on its four wheels, and to 
the great joy of its maker was found to answer its pur- 
pose admirably. In it he wheeled his little brother, — 



366 INDUSTRIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

afterwards well known as Sir Peter Fairbairn, mayor of 
Leeds, — in various directions about the farm, and some- 
times to a considerable distance from it ; and tbe vehicle 
was regarded on the whole as a decided success. His 
father encouraged him in his little feats of construction 
of a similar kind, and he proceeded to make and rig 
miniature boats and ships, and then miniature wind and 
water mills, in which last art he acquii-ed such expertness 
that he had sometimes five or six mills going at the same 
time. The machinery was all made with a knife, the 
water-spouts being formed by the bark of a tree, and the 
millstones represented by round discs of the same mate- 
rial. Such were the first constructive efforts of the future 
millwright and engineer. 

When the family removed to Allengrange in 1801, the 
boys were sent to school at Munlachy, about a mile and 
a half distant from the farm. The school was attended 
by about forty barefooted boys in tartan kilts, and about 
twenty girls, all of the poorer class. The schoolmaster 
was one Donald Frazer, a good teacher, but a severe dis- 
ciplinarian. Under him, William made some progress in 
reading, writmg, and arithmetic ; and though he himself 
has often lamented the meagreness of his school instruc- 
tion, it is clear, from what he has since been enabled to 
accomplish, that these early lessons were enough ^t all 
events to set him fairly on the road of self-culture, and 
proved the fruitful seed of much valuable intellectual 
labor, as well as of many excellent practical books. 

After two years' trial of his new situation, which was 
by no means satisfactory, Andrew Fairbairn determined 
again to remove southward with his family ; and selling 
off everything, they set sail from Cromarty for Leith in 
June, 1803. Having seen his wife and childi-en tempo- 



WILLIAM FAIRBAIRN. 367 

farily settled at Kelso, he looked out for a situation, and 
shortly after proceeded to undertake the management 
of Sir "William Ingleby's farm at Eipley in Yorkshire. 
Meanwhile William was placed for three months under 
the charge of his uncle "William, the parish schoolmaster 
of Galashiels, for the purpose of receiving instniction in 
book-keeping and land-surveying, from which he derived 
considerable benefit. He could not, however, remain 
longer at school ; for being of the age of fourteen, it was 
thought necessary that he should be set to work without 
further delay. His first employment was on the fine new 
bridge at Kelso, then in course of construction after the 
designs of Mr. Rennie ; but in helping one day to carry 
a handbarrow load of stone, his strength proving insufii- 
cient, he gave way under it, and the stones fell upon him, 
one of them inflicting a serious wound on his leg, which 
kept him a cripple for months. In the mean time his 
father, being dissatisfied with his prospects at Ripley, 
accepted the appointment of manager of the Percy Main 
Colliery Company's farm in the neighborhood of Newcas- 
tle-on-Tyne, whither he proceeded with his family towards 
the end of 1803, WiUiam joining them in the following 
February, when the wound in his leg had sufficiently 
healed to enable him to travel. 

Percy Main is situated within two miles of North 
Shields, and is one of the largest collieries in that dis- 
trict. "William was immediately set to work at the col- 
liery, his first employment being to lead coals from be- 
hind the screen to the pitmen's houses. His Scotch 
accent, and perhaps his awkwardness, exposed him to 
much annoyance from the " pit lads," who were a very 
rough and profligate set ; and as boxing was a favorite 
pastime among them, our youth had to fight his way to 



368 INDUSTRIAL BIOGEA-PHY. 

tlieir respect, passing tlu'ougli a campaign of no less ttan 
seventeen pitched battles. He was several times on the 
point of abandoning the work altogether, rather than un- 
dergo the buffetings and insults to wliich he was almost a 
daily mai'tyr, when a protracted contest with one of the 
noted boxers of the colliery, in which he proved the vic- 
tor, at length relieved him from further persecution. 

In the following year, at the age of sixteen, he was 
articled as an engineer for five years to the owners of 
Percy Main, and was placed under the charge of Mr. 
Eobinson, the engine-wright of the colliery. His wages 
as apprentice were 8s. a week ; but by working over- 
hours, making wooden wedges used in pit-work, and block- 
ing out segments of solid oak required for walling the sides 
of the mine, he considerably increased his earnings, wliich 
enabled him 'to add to the gross income of the family, who 
were still struggling with the difficulties of small means 
and increasing expenses. When not .engaged upon over- 
work in the evenings, he occupied himself in self-educa- 
tion. He drew up a scheme of daily study with this 
object, to which he endeavored to adhere as closely as 
possible, — devoting the evenings of Mondays to men- 
suration and arithmetic ; Tuesdays, to history and poetry ; 
Wednesdays, to recreation, novels, and romances ; Thurs- 
days, to algebra and mathematics ; Fridays, to Euclid and 
trigonometry ; Saturdays, to recreation ; and Sundays, to 
church, Milton, and recreation. He was enabled to ex- 
tend the range of his reading by the help of the North 
Shields Subscription Library, to which his father entered 
him a subscriber. Portions of his spare time were also 
occasionally devoted to mechanical construction, in which 
he cultivated the useful art of handling tools. One of his 
first attempts was the contrivance of a piece of machinery 



WILLIAM FAIEBAIRN. 369 

worked by a weight and a pendulum, that should at the 
same time serve for a timepiece and an oiTery ; hut his 
want of means, as well as of time, prevented him prose- 
cuting this contrivance to completion. He was more suc- 
cessful with the construction of a fiddle, on which he was 
ambitious to become a performer. It must have been a 
tolerable instrument, for a professional player offered him 
20s. for it. But though he succeeded in making a fiddle, 
and for some time persevered m the attempt to play upon 
it, he did not succeed in producing any satisfactory mel- 
ody, and at length gave up the attempt, 'convinced that 
nature had not intended him for a musician.* 

* Long after, when married and settled at Manchester, the fiddle, 
which had been carefully preserved, was taken down from the shelf 
for the amusement of the children; but though they were well enough 
pleased with it, the instrument was never brought from its place with- 
out creating alarm in the mind of their mother lest anybody should 
hear it. At length a dancing-master, who was giving lessons in tho 
neighborhood, borrowed the fiddle, and, to the great relief of the 
family, it was never returned. Many years later, Mr. Fairbairn was 
present at the starting of a cotton-mill at Wesserling in Alsace, be- 
longing to Messrs. Gros, Deval, and Co., for which his Manchester 
firm had provided the mill-work and water-wheel (the first erected in 
France on the suspension principle), when the event was followed by 
an entertainment. During dinner Mr. Fairbairn had been explaining 
to M. Gros, who spoke a little English, the nature of home-brewed 
beer, which he much admired, having tasted it when in England. 
The dinner was followed by music, in the performance of which the 
host himself took part; and on Mr. Fah'bairn's admiring his execution 
on the violin, M. Gros asked him if he played. "A little,"- was the 
almost unconscious reply. " Then you must have the goodness to 
play some," and the instrument was in a moment placed in his hands, 
amidst urgent requests from all sides that he should play. There was 
no alternative; so he proceeded to perform one of his best tunes, — : 
" The Keel Row." The company listened with amazement, until the 
performer's career was suddenly cut short by the host exclaiming at 
the top of his voice, " Stop, stop. Monsieur ! by gar, that be home- 
brewed music / " 

16* X 



370 INDUSTRIAL BIOGEAPHY. 

In due course of time our young engineer was removed 
from the workshop, and appointed to take charge of the 
pumps of the mine and the steam-engine by which they 
were kept in work. This employment was more to his 
taste, gave him better " insight," and afforded him greater 
opportunities for improvement. The work was, however, 
very trying, and at times severe, especially in winter, the 
engineer being liable to be drenched with water every 
time that he descended the shaft to regulate the working 
of the pumps ; but, thanks to a stout constitution, he bore 
through these exposures without injury, though, others 
sank under them. At this period he had the advantage 
of occasional days of leisure, to which he was entitled by 
reason of his night work; and during such leisure he 
usually applied himself to reading and study. 

It was about this time that William Fairbaim made 
the acquaintance of George Stephenson, while the latter 
was employed in working the ballast-engine at Willington 
Quay. He greatly admired George as a workman, and 
was accustomed in the summer evenings to go over to the 
Quay occasionally and take charge of George's engine, to 
enable him to earn a few shillings extra by heaving bal- 
last out of the collier vessels. Stephenson's zeal in the 
pursuit of mechanical knowledge probably was not with- 
out its influence in stimulating William Fairbairn himself 
to carry on so diligently the work of self-culture. But 
little could the latter have dreamt, while serving his ap- 
prenticeship at Percy Main, that his friend George Ste- 
phenson, the brakesman, should yet be recognized as 
among the greatest engineers of his age, and that he 
himself should have the opportunity, in his capacity of 
President of the Institute of Mechanical Engineers at 
Newcastle, of making public acknowledgment of the 



WILLIAM FAIEBAIEN. 371 

opportunities for education whicli he had enjoyed in 
that neighboi-hood in his early years.* 

Having finished his five years' apprenticeship at Percy 
Main, by which time he had reached his twenty-first year, 
William Fairbairn shortly after determined to go forth 
into the world in search of experience. At Newcastle 
he found employment as a millwright for a few weeks, 
during which he worked at the erection of a saw-mill in 
the Close. From thence he went to Bedlington at an 
advanced wage. He remained there for six months, dur- 
ing which he was so fortunate as to make the acquaint- 
ance of Miss Mar, who five years after, when his wander- 
ings had ceased, became his wife. • On the completion of 
the job on which he had been employed, our engineer 
prepared to make another change. "Work was difficult 
to be had in the North, and, joined by a comrade, he 
resolved to try his fortune in London. Adopting the 
cheapest route, he took passage by a Shields collier, in 
which he sailed for the Thames on the 11th of Decem- 
ber, 1811. It was then war-time, and the vessel was 
very short-handed, the crew consisting only of three old 



* " Although not a native of Newcastle," he then said, " he owed 
almost everything to Newcastle. He got the rudiments of his educa- 
tion there, such as it was; and that was (something like that of his 
revered predecessor George Stephenson) at a colliery. He was brought 
up as an engineer at the Percy Main Colliery. He was there seven 
years ; and if it had not been for the opportunities he then enjoyed, 
together with the use of the library at North Shields, he believed he 
■would not have been there to address them. Being self-taught, but 
with some little ambition, and a determination to improve himself, 
he was now enabled to stand before them with some pretensions to 
mechanical knowledge, and the persuasion that he had been a useful 
contributor to practical science and objects connected with mechanical 
engineering." — Meeting of the Institute of Mechanical Engineers at 
Newcastle-on-Tyne, 1858. 



372 INDUSTRIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

men and three boys, with the skipper and mate ; so that 
the vessel was no sooner fairly at sea than both the pas- 
senger youths had to lend a hand in working her, and this 
continued for the greater part of the voyage. The weather 
was very rough, and in consequence of the captain's anx- 
iety to avoid privateers, he hugged the shore too close, 
and when navigating the inside passage of the Swin, be- 
tween Yarmouth and the Nore, the vessel very narrowly 
escaped shipwreck. After beating about along shore, the 
captain half drunk the greater part of the time, the vessel 
at last reached the Thames, with loss of spars and an 
anchor, after a tedious voyage of fourteen days. 

On arriving off Black wall the captain went ashoro 
ostensibly in search of the Coal Exchange, taking our 
young engineer with him. The former was still under 
the influence of drink; and though he failed to reach the 
Exchange that night, he succeeded in reaching a public 
house in Wapping, beyond which he could not be got. 
At ten o'clock the two started on their return to the ship ; 
but the captain took the oppoi-tunity of the darkness to 
separate from his companion, and did not reach the ship 
until next morning. It afterwards came out that he had 
been taken up and lodged in the watch-house. The youth, 
left alone in the streets of the strange city, felt himself in 
an awkward dilemma. He asked the next Avatchman he 
met to recommend him to a lodging, on which the man 
took him to a house in New Gravel Lane, where he suc- 
ceeded in finding accommodation. What was his horror 
next morning to learn that a A\hole family — the William- 
sons — had been murdered in the very next house dur- 
ing the night! Making the best of his way back to the 
ship, he found that his comrade, who had suffered dread- 
fully from sea-sickness during the voyage, had nearly 



WILLIAM FAIRBAIRN. 373 

recovered, and was able to accompany him into the city 
in search of work. They had between them a sum of 
only about eight pounds, so that it was necessary for them 
to take immediate steps to obtain employment. 

They thought themselves fortunate in getting the prom- 
ise of a job from Mr. Rennie, the celebrated engineer, 
whose works were situated at the south end of Blackfriars 
Bridge. Mr. Eennie sent the two young men to his fore- 
man, with the request that he should set them to work. 
The foreman referred them to the secretary of the ISIill- 
wright's Society, the shop being filled with Union men, 
who set their shoulders together to exclude those of their 
own grade, however skilled, wh% could not produce evi- 
dence that they had complied with the rules of the trade- 
Describing his first experience of London Unionists, nearly 
half a century later, before an assembly of workingmen at 
Derby, Mr. Fairbairn said, " When I first entered Lon- 
don, a young man from the country had no chance what- 
ever of success, in consequence of the trade guilds and 
unions. I had no difficulty in finding employment, but 
before I could begin work I had to run 'the gauntlet of 
the trade societies ; and after dancing attendance for 
neai-ly six weeks, with very little money in my pocket, 
and having to ' box Harry ' all the time, I was ultimately 
declared illegitimate, and sent adrift to seek my fortune 
elsewhere. There were then three millwright societies in 
London: one called the Old Society, another the New 
Society, and a third the Independent Society. These 
societies were not founded for the protection of the trade, 
but for the maintenance of high wages, and for the exclu- 
sion of all those who could not assert their claims to work 
in London and other corporate towns. Laws of a most 
arbitrary character were enforced, and they were governed 



ST^ INDUSTRIAL BIOGEAPHY. 

by cliques of self-appointed officers, who never failed to 
take care of their own interests." * 

Their first application for leave to work in London 
having thus disastrously ended, the two youths deter- 
mined to try their fortune in the country, and with ach- 
ing hearts they started next morning before daylight. 
Their hopes had been suddenly crushed, their slender 
funds were nearly exhausted, and they scarce knew 
where to turn. But they set their faces bravely north- 
ward, and pushed along the high road, through slush and 
snow, as far as Hertford, which they reached after nearly 
eight hours' walking, on the moderate fare during their 
journey of a penny roll |nd a pint of ale each. Though 
wet to the skin, they immediately sought out a master- 
millwright, and applied for work. He said he had no job 
vacant at present ; but, seeing their sorry plight, he had 
compassion upon them, and said, " Though I cannot give 
you employment, you seem to be two nice lads " ; and he 
concluded by offering Fairbairn a half-crown. But his 
proud spirit revolted at taking money which he had not 
earned ; and he -declined the proffered gift with thanks, 
saying he was sorry they could not have work. He then 
turned away from the door, on which his companion, 
mortified by his refusal to accept the half-crown at a 
time when they were reduced almost to then' last penny, 
broke out in bitter remonstrances and regrets. Weary, 
wet, and disheartened, the two turned into Hertford church- 
yard, and rested for a while upon a tombstone, Fairbairn's 
companion relieving himself by a good cry, and occasional 
angry outbursts of " Why did n't you take the half-crown ?" 
" Come, come, man ! " said Fairbairn, " it 's of no use cry- 
ing ; cheer up ; let 's try another road ; something must 

♦ Useful Information for Engineers, 2d series, 1860, p. 211. 



WILLIAM FAIRBAIRN. 375 

soon cast up." They rose, and set out again, but when 
they reached the bridge, the dispirited youth again bi'oke 
down ; and, leaning his back against the parapet, said, 
" I winna gang a bit further ; let 's get back to London." 
Against this Fairbairn remonstrated, saying, " It 's of no 
use lamenting ; we must try what we can do here ; if the 
worst comes to the worst, we can 'list ; you are a strong 
chap, — they '11 soon take you ; and as for me, I '11 join 
too ; I think I could fight a bit." After this council of 
war, the pair determined to find lodgings in the town for 
the night, and begin their search for work anew on the 
morrow. 

Next day, when passing along one of the back streets 
of Hertford, they came to a wheelwright's shop, where 
they made the usual inquiries. The wheelwright said 
that he did not think there was any job to be had in the 
town ; but if the two young men pushed on to Cheshunt, 
he thought they might find work at a windmill which was 
under contract to be finished in three weeks, and where 
the millwright wanted hands. Here was a ghmpse of 
hope at last ; and the strength and spirits of both revived 
in an instant. They set out immediately ; walked the 
seven miles to Cheshunt ; succeeded in obtaining the ex- 
pected employment ; worked at the job a fortnight ; and 
entered London again with nearly three pounds in their 
pockets. 

Our young millwright at length succeeded in obtaining 
regular employment in the metropolis at good wages. He 
worked first at Grundy's Patent Ropery at Shadwell, and 
afterwards at Mr. Penn's of Greenwich, gaining much 
valuable insight, and sedulously improving his mind by 
study in his leisure hours. Among the acquaintances he 
then made was an enthusiastic projector of the name of 



376 INDUSTRIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

Hall, who had taken out one patent for making hemp 
from bean-stalks, and contemplated taking out another 
for effecting spade tillage by steam. The young engineer 
was invited to make the requisite model, which he did, 
and it cost him both time and money, whicli the out-at- 
elbows projector was unable to repay ; and all that came 
of the project was the exhibition of the model at the 
Society of Arts and before the Board of Agriculture, in 
whose collection it is probably still to be found. Another 
more successful machine, constructed by Mr. Fairbairn 
about the same time, was a sausage-chopping machine, 
which he contrived and made for a pork-butcher for 331. 
It was the first order he had ever had on his own ac- 
count; and, as the machine when made did its work 
admirably, he was naturally very proud of it. The ma- 
chine was provided with a fly-wheel and double crank, 
with connecting rods which worked a cross head. It con- 
tained a dozen knives crossing each other at right angles, 
in such a way as to enable them to mince or divide the 
meat on a revolving-block. Another part of the appara- 
tus accomplished the filling of the sausages in a very 
expert manner, and to the entire satisfaction of the pork- 
butcher. 

As work was scarce in London at the time, and our 
engineer was bent on gathering further experience in 
his trade, he determined to make a tour in the South of 
England and South Wales ; and set out from London in 
April, 1813, with 71. in his pocket. After visiting Bath 
and Frome, he settled to work for six weeks at Bathgate ; 
after which he travelled by Bradford and Trowbridge-^ 
always on foot — to Bristol. From thence he travelled 
through South Wales, spending a few days each at New- 
port, Llandaff, and Cardiff, where he took ship for Dublin. 



WILLIAM FAIRBAIRN. 377 

By the time he reaafced Ireland his means were all but 
exhausted, only three halfpence remaining in his pocket ; 
but, being young, hopeful, skilful, and industrious, he was 
light of heart, and looked cheerfully forward. The next 
day he succeeded in finding employment at Mr. Robin- 
son's, of the Phoenix Foundery, where he was put to work 
at once upon a set of patterns for some nail-machinery. 
Mr. Robinson was a man of spirit and enterprise, and, 
seeing the quantities of English machine-made nails im- 
ported into Ireland, he was desirious of giving Irish indus- 
try the benefit of the manufacture. The construction of 
the nail-making machinery occupied Mr. Fairbairn the 
entire summer ; and on its completion he set sail in the 
month of October for Livei-pool. It may be added, that, 
notwithstanding the expense incurred by Mr. Robinson 
in setting up the new nail-machinery, his workmen threat- 
ened him with a strike if he ventured to use it. As he 
could not brave the opposition of the Unionists, then aU- 
powerful in Dublin, the machinery was never set to work ; 
the nail-making trade left Ireland, never to return ; and 
the Irish market was thenceforward supplied entirely with 
English-made nails. The Dublin iron manufacture was 
ruined in the same way ; not through any local disadvan- 
tages, but solely by the prohibitory regulations enforced 
by the workmen of the Trades' Unions. 

Arrived at Liverpool, after a voyage of two days, — • 
which was then considered a fair passage, — our engineer 
proceeded to Manchester, which had already become the 
principal centre of manufacturing operations in the North 
of England. As we have already seen in the memoirs 
of Nasmyth, Roberts, and Whitworth, Manchester offered 
great attractions for highly-skiUed mechanics ; and it was 
as fortimate for Manchester as for William Fairbairn 



378 INDUSTEIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

himself, that he settled dowB there ^s a working mill- 
wright in the year 1814, bringing with him no capital, 
but an abundance of energy, skill, and practical experi- 
ence in his trade. Afterwards describing the character- 
istics of the millwright at that time, Mr. Fairbairn said, 
" In those days a good millwright was a man of large 
resources ; he was generally well educated, and could 
draw out his own designs and work at the lathe ; he had 
a knowledge of mill machinery, pumps, and cranes, and 
could turn his hand to the bench or the forge with equal 
adroitness and facihty. If hard pressed, as was fre- 
quently the case in country places far from towns, he 
could devise for himself expedients which enabled him to 
meet special requirements, and to complete his work 
without assistance. This was the class of men with 
whom I associated in early life, — proud of their calling, 
fertile in resources, and aware of their value in a country 
where the industrial arts were rapidly developing. ""* 

When William Fairbairn entered Manchester he was 
twenty-four years of age ; and his hat still " covered his 
family." But, being now pretty well satiated with his 
" wanderschaft," — as German tradesmen term their stage 
of travelling in search of trade experience, — he desired 
to settle, and, if fortune favored him, to marry the object 
of his affections, to whom his heart still faithfully turned 
durmg all his wanderings. He succeeded in finding em- 
ployment with Mr. Adam Parkinson, remaining with" him 
for two years, working as a millwright, at good wages. 
Out of his earnings he saved sufficient to furnish a two- 
roomed cottage comfortably ; and here we find him fairly 
installed with his wife by the end of 1816. As in the 

* Lecture at Derby, — Useful Information for Engineers, 2d series, 
p. 212. 



WILLIAM FAIRBAIEN. 379 

case of most men of a thoughtful turn, jnarriage served 
not only to settle our engineer, but to stimulate him to 
more energetic action. He now began to aim at taking 
a higher position, and entertained the ambition of begin- 
ning business on his own account. One of his first efforts 
in this direction was the preparation of the design of a 
cast-iron bridge over the Irwell, at Blackfriars, for which 
a prize was offered. The attempt was unsuccessful, and 
a stone bridge was eventually decided on ; but the effort 
made was creditable, and proved the beginning of many 
designs. The first job he executed on his own account 
was the erection of an iron conservatory and hothouse for 
Mr. J. Hulme, of Clayton, near Manchester ; and he in- 
duced one of his shopmates, James Lillie, to join him in 
the undertaking. This proved the beginning of a busi- 
ness connection which lasted for a period of fifteen years, 
and laid the foundation of a partnership, the reputation of 
which, in connection with miU-work and the construction 
of iron-machinery generally, eventually became known 
all over the civilized world. 

Although the patterns for the conservatory were all 
made, and the castings were begun, the work was not 
proceeded with, in consequence of the notice given by a 
Birmingham firm, that the plan after which it was pro- 
posed to construct it was an infringement of their patent. 
The young firm were consequently under the necessity 
of looking about them for other employment. And to be 
prepared for executing orders, they proceeded in the year 
1817 to hire a small shed at a rent of 12s. a week, in 
which they set up a lathe of their own making, capable 
of turning shafts of from three to six inches diameter ; 
and they hired a strong Irishman to drive the wheel and 
assist at the heavy work. Their first job was the erection 



380 INDUSTRIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

of a cullender, and their next a calico-polisliing mactlne ; 
but orders came in slowly, and James Lillie began to de- 
spair of success. His more hopeful partner strenuously 
urged him to perseverance, and so buoyed him up with 
hopes of orders, that he determined to go on a little 
longer. They then issued cards among the manufac- 
turers, and made a tour of the principal firms, offering 
their services and soliciting work. 

Amongst others, Mr. Fairbairn called upon the Messrs. 
Adam and George Murray, the large cotton-spinners, 
taking with him the designs of his iron bridge. Mr. Adam 
Murray received him kindly, heard his explanations, and 
invited him to call on the following day with his partner. 
The manufacturer must have been favorably impressed 
by this interview, for next day, when Fairbairn and Lillie 
called, he took them over his mill, and asked whether they 
felt themselves competent to renew with horizontal cross- 
shafts the whole of the work by which the mule-spinning 
machinery was turned. This was a formidable enter- 
prise for a young firm without capital and almost without 
plant, to undertake ; but they had confidence in them- 
selves, and boldly replied that they were willing and able 
to execute the work. On this, MJr. Murray said he would 
call and see them at their own workshop, to satisfy him- 
self that they possessed the means of undertaking such 
an order. This proposal was by no means encouraging 
to the partners, who feared that when Mr. Murray spied 
" the nakedness of the land " in that quarter, he. might 
repent him of his generous intentions. He paid his prom- 
ised visit, and it is probable that he was more favor- 
ably impressed by the individual merits of the partners 
than by the excellence of their machine-tools, — of which 
they had only one, the lathe which they had just made 



WILLIAM FAIRBAIRN. 381 

and set up ; nevertheless he gave them the order, and 
they began with glad hearts and ^villing hands and minds 
to execute this their first contract. It may be sufficient 
to state that by working late and early, — from five in 
the morning until nine at night for a considerable period, 
— they succeeded in completing the alterations within the 
time specified, and to ]Mr. Murray's entire satisfaction. 
The practical skill of the young men being thus proved, 
and their anxiety to execute the work intrusted to them 
to the best of their ability having excited the admiration 
of their employer, he took the opportunity of recommend- 
ing them to his friends in the trade, and amongst others 
to Mr. John Kennedy, of the firm of MacConnel and 
Kennedy, then the largest spinners in the kingdom. 

The Cotton Trade had by this time sprung into great 
importance, . and was increasing with extraordinary ra- 
pidity. Population and wealth were pouring into South 
Lancashire, and industry and enterprise were everywhere 
on foot. The foundations were being laid of a system of 
manufacturing in iron, machinery, and textile fabrics of 
nearly aU kinds, the like of which has perhaps never been 
surpassed in any country. It was a race of industry, in 
which the prizes were won by the swift, the strong, and 
the skilled. For the most part, the early Lancashire 
manufacturers started very nearly equal in point of 
worldly circumstances, men originally of the smallest 
means often coming to the front, — workmen, weavers, 
mechanics, pedlers, farmers, or laborers, — in course of 
time rearing immense manufacturing concerns by sheer 
force of industry, energy, and personal ability. The de- 
scription given by one of the largest employers in Lan- 
cashire, of the capital with which he started, might apply 
to many of them. " When I married," said he, " my wife 



382 INDUSTRIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

had a spinning-wheel, and I had a loom, — that was the 
beginning of our fortune." As an illustration of the rapid 
rise of Manchester men from small beginnings, the fol- 
lowing outline of John Kennedy's career, intimately con- 
nected as he was with the subject of our memoir, — may 
not be without interest in this place. 

John Kennedy was one of five young men of nearly 
the same age, who came from the same neighborhood in 
Scotland, and eventually settled in IVfenchester as cotton- 
spinners about the end of last century. The others 
were his brother James, his partner James MacConnel, 
and the brothers Murray, above referred to, — Mr. 
Fairbairn's first extensive employers. John Kennedy's 
parents were respectable peasants, possessed of a little bit 
of ground at Knocknalling, in the stewartry of Kirkcud- 
bright, on which they contrived to live, and .that was all. 
John was one of a family of five sons and two daughters, 
and the father dying early, the responsibility and the 
toil of bringing up these children devolved upon the 
mother. She was a strict disciplinarian, and early im- 
pressed upon the minds of her boys that they had their 
own way to make in the world. One of the first things 
she made them think about was, the learning of some 
useful trade for the purpose of securing an independent 
living ; " for," said she, " if you have gotten mechanical 
skill and intelligence, and are honest and trustworthy, 
you will always find employment and be ready to avail 
yourselves of opportunities for advancing yourselves in 
life." Though the mother desired to give her sons the 
benefits of school education, there was but little of that 
commodity to be had in the remote district of Knocknall- 
ing. The parish school was six miles distant, and the 
teaching given in it was of a very inferior sort, — usually 



WILLIAM FAIEBAIEN. 383 

administered by students, probationers for the ministry, 
or by half-fledged dominies, themselves more needing in- 
struction than able to impart it. The Kennedys could 
only attend the school during a few months in summer- 
time, so that what they had acquired by the end of one 
season was often forgotten by the beginning of the next. 
They learntj however, to read the Testament, say their 
catechism, and write their own names. 

As the children grew up, they each longed for the time 
to come when they could be put to a trade. The family 
were poorly clad ; stockings and shoes were luxuries rarely 
indulged in ; and Mr. Kennedy used in after life to tell 
his grandchildren of a certain Sunday which he remem- 
bered shortly after his father died, when he was setting 
out for Dairy church, and had borrowed his brother 
Alexander's stockings, his brother ran after him and 
cried, " See that you keep out of the dirt, for mind you 
have got my stockings on!" John indulged in many 
day-dreams about the world that lay beyond the valley 
and the mountains wHch surrounded the place of his 
birth. Though a mere boy, the natural objects, eter- 
nally unchangeable, which daily met his eyes, — the 
profound silence of the scene, broken only by the bleat- 
ing of a solitary sheep, or the crowing of a distant cock, 
or the thrasher beating out with his flail the scanty grain 
of the black oats spread upon a skin in the open air, or 
the streamlets leaping from the rocky clefts, or the dis- 
tant church-bell sounding up the valley on Sundays, — 
all bred in his mind a profound melancholy and feeling 
of loneliness, and he used to think to himself, " What 
can I do to see and know something of the world beyond 
this ? " The greatest pleasure he experienced during 
that period was when packmen came round with their 



384 . INDUSTRIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

Stores of clotliing and hardware, and displayed tliem for 
sale ; he eagerly listened to all that such visitors had to 
tell of the ongoings of the world beyond the valley. 

The people of the Knocknalling district were very 
poor. The greater part of them were unable to sup- 
port the younger members, whose custom it was to move 
off elsewhere in search of a living when Jthey arrived at 
working years, — some to Amesica, some to the West In- 
dies, and some to the manufacturing districts of the south. 
Whole families took their departure in this way, and the 
few friendships which Kennedy formed amongst those of 
his own age were thus suddenly snapped, and only a great 
blank remained. But he too could follow their example, 
and enter upon that wider world in which so many others 
had ventured and succeeded. As early as eight years of 
age, his mother still impressing upon her boys the neces- 
sity of learning to work, John gathered courage to say to 
her that he wished to leave home and apprentice himself 
to some handicraft business. Having seen some carpen- 
ters working in the neighborhood, with good clothes on 
their backs, and hearing the men's characters well spoken 
of, he thought it would be a fine thing to be a carpenter 
too, particularly as the occupation would enable him to 
move from place to place and see the world. He was 
as yet, however, of too tender an age to set out on 
the journey of life ; but, when he was about eleven 
years old, Adam Murray, one of his most intimate ac- 
quaintances, having gone off to serve an apprenticeship 
in Lancashire with Mr. Cannan of Chowbent, himself a 
native of the district, the event again awakened in him 
a strong desire to migrate from Knocknalling. Others 
had gone after Murray, James MacConnel and two 
or three more ; and at length, at about fourteen years 



WILLIAM FAIEBAIRN. 385 

of age, Kennedy himself left his native home for Lan- 
cashire. 

About the time that he set out, Paul Jones was ravag- 
ing the coasts of Galloway, and producing general con- 
sternation throughout the district. Great excitement also 
prevailed thi-ough the occurrence of the Gordon riots in 
London, which extended into remote country places ; and 
Kennedy remembered being nearly frightened out of 
his wits on one occasion by a poor dominie whose school 
he attended, who preached to his boys about the hor- 
rors that were coming upon the land through the intro- 
duction of Popery. The boy set out for England on the 
2d of February, 1784, mounted upon a Galloway, his 
little package of clothes and necessaries strapped be- 
hind him. As he passed along the glen, recognizing each 
famUiar spot, his heart was in his mouth, and he dared 
scarcely trust himself to look back. The ground was 
covered with snow, and nature quite frozen up. He had 
the company of his brother Alexander as far as the town 
of New Galloway, where he slept the first night. The 
next day, accompanied by one of his future masters, Mr. 
James Smith, a partner of Mr. Cannan's, who had origi- 
nally entered his service as a workman, they started on 
ponyback for Dumfries, After a long day's ride, they 
entered the town in the evening, and amongst the things 
which excited the boy's surprise were the few street- 
lamps of the town, and a wagon with four horses and 
four wheels. In his remote valley carts were as yet un- 
known^ and even in Dumfries itself they were compara- 
tive rarities ; the common means of transport in the dis- 
trict being what were called " tumbling cars." The day 
after, they reached Longtown, and slept there ; the boy 
noting another lamp. The next stage was to Carlisle, 
17 Y 



.386 INDUSTRIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

where Mr. Smith, whose firm had supplied a carding-en- 
gine and spinning-jenny to a small manufacturer in the 
town, went to " gate " and trim them. One was put up 
in a small house, the other in a small room ; and the sight 
of these machines was John Kennedy's first introduction 
to cotton-spinning. While going up the inn-stairs he was 
amazed and not a little alarmed at seeing two men in 
armor, — he had heard of the battles between the Scots 
and English, — and believed these to be some of the fight- 
ing men; though they proved to be but effigies. Five 
more days were occupied in travelling southward, the rest- 
ing places being at Penrith, Kendal, Preston, and Chor- 
ley,the two travellers arriving at Chowbent on Sunday, the 
8th of February, 1784. Mr. Cannan seems to have col- 
lected about him a little colony of Scotsmen, mostly from 
the same neighborhood, and in the evening there was 
quite an assembly of them at the " Bear's Paw," where 
Kennedy put up, to hear the tidings from their native 
county brought by the last new-comer. On the following 
morning the boy began his apprenticeship as a carpenter 
with the firm of Cannan and Smith, ser\'ing seven years 
for his meat and clothing. He applied himself to his 
trade, and became a good, steady workman. He was 
thoughtful and self-improving, always endeavoring to ac- 
quire knowledge of new arts and to obtain msight into new 
machines. " Even in early life," said he, in the account 
of his career addressed to his cliildren, " I felt a strong 
desire to know what others knew, and was always ready 
to communicate what little I knew myself ; and by ad- 
mitting at once my want of education, I found that I often 
made friends of those on whom I had no claims beyond 
what an ardent desire for knowledge could give me." 
His apprenticeship oyer, John Kennedy commenced 



WILLIAM FAIRBAIEN. 887 

business * in a small way in Manchester, in 1791, in con- 
junction with two other workmen, Sandford and Mac- 
Connel. Their business was machine-making and mule- 
spinning, Kennedy taking the direction of the machine 
department. The firm at first put up their mules for 
spinning in any convenient garrets they could hire at a 
low rental. After some time they took part of a small 
factory in Canal Street, and carried on their business on 
a larger scale. Kennedy and MacConnel afterwards oc- 
cupied a little factory in the same street, — since removed 
to give place to Fairbairn's large machine works. The 
progi-ess of the firm was steady and even rapid, and they 
went on building mills and extending their business, — 
Mr. Kennedy, as he advanced in life, gathering honor, 
wealth, and troops of friends. Notwithstanding the de- * 
fects of his early education, he was one of the few men 
of his class who became distinguished for his literary 
labors in connection principally with the cotton trade. 
Towards the close of his life, he prepared several pa- 
pers of great interest for the Literary and Philosophical 
Society of Manchester, which are to be found printed in 
their Proceedings ; one of these, on the Invention of the 
Mule by Samuel Crompton, was for a long time the only 

* One of the reasons whicli induced Kennedy thns early to begin 
the business of mule-spinning has been related as follows. While em- 
ployed as apprentice at Chowbent, he happened to sleep over the mas- 
ter's apartment; and late one eyening, on the latter returning from 
market, his wife asked his success. " I 've sold the eightys," said he, 
"at a guinea a pound." " What," exclaimed the mistress, in a loud 
voice, " sold the eightys for only a guinea a pound ! I never heard of 
such a thing." The apprentice could not help overhearing the remark, 
and it set him a thinking. He knew the price of cotton and the price 
of labor, and concluded there must be a very large margin of profit. 
So soon as he was out of his time, therefore, he determined that he 
should become a cotton-spinner. 



888 INDUSTRIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

record.wliich the public possessed of the merits and claims 
of that distinguished inventor. His knowledge of the 
history of the cotton manufacture in its various stages, 
and of mechanical ijiventions generally, was most exten- 
sive and accurate. Among his friends he numbered James 
"Watt, who placed his son in his establishment for the pur- 
pose of acquiring knowledge and experience of his pro- 
fession. At a much later period he numbered George 
Stephenson among his friends, having been one of the 
first directors of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, 
and one of the three judges (selected because of his somid 
judgment and proved impartiality, as well as his knowl- 
edge of mechanical engmeering) to adjudicate on the cele- 
brated competition of locomotives at Rainhill. By these 
successive steps did this poor Scotch boy become one of 
the leading men of Manchester, closing his long and use- 
ful life in 1855 at an advanced age, his mental faculties 
remaining clear and unclouded to the last. His departure 
from life was happy and tranquil, — so easy that it was 
for a time doubtful whether he was dead or asleep. 

To return to Mr. Fairbaim's career, and his progress 
as a millwright and engineer in Manchester. When he 
and his partner undertook the extensive alterations in 
Mr. Murray's factory, both were in a great measure un- 
acquainted with the working of cotton-mills, having until 
then been occupied principally with corn-mills, and print- 
ing and bleaching works ; so that an entirely new field 
was now opened to their united exertions. Sedulously 
improving their opportunities, the young partners not 
only thoroughly mastered the practical details of cotton- 
mill work, but they were very shortly enabled to intro- 
duce a series of improvements of the greatest importance 
in this branch of our national manufactures. Bringing 



WILLIAM FAIEBAIRN. 389 

their vigorous practical minds to bear on the subject, 
they at once saw that the gearing of even the best mills 
was of a very clumsy and imperfect character. They 
found the machinery driven by large square cast-iron 
shafts, on which huge wooden drums, some of them as 
much as four feet in diameter, revolved at the rate of 
about forty revolutions a minute ; and the couplings were 
so badly fitted that they might be heard creaking' and 
groaning a long way off. The speeds of the driving- 
shafts were mostly got up by a series of straps and 
counter di'ums, which not only crowded the rooms, but 
seriously obstructed the light where most required for con- 
ducting the delicate operations of the different machines. 
Another serious defect lay in the construction of the 
shafts, and in the mode of fixing the couplings, which 
were constantly giving way, so that a week seldom 
passed without one or more breaks-down. The repairs 
were usually made on Sundays, which were the mill- 
wrights' hardest working days, to their own serious moral 
detriment ; but when trade was good, every consideration 
was made to give way to the uninterrupted running of 
the mills during the rest of the week. 

It occurred to Mr. Fairbairn that the defective arrange- 
ments thus briefly described might be remedied by the 
introduction of lighter shafts driven at double or treble 
the velocity, smaller drums to drive the machinery, and 
the use of wrought-iron wherever practicable, because of 
its greater lightness and strength compared with wood. 
He also provided for the simplification of the hangers 
and fixings by which the shafting was supported, and 
introduced the "half-lap coupling" so well known to 
millwrights and engineers. His partner entered fully 
into his views ; and the opportunity shortly presented 



390 INDUSTRIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

itself of carrying them into effect in the large new mill 
erected in 1818, for the firm of MacConnel and Ken- 
nedy. The machinery of that concern proved a great im- 
provement on all that had preceded it ; and, to Messrs. 
Fairbairn and Lillie's new system of gearing Mr. Ken- 
nedy added an original invention of his o^vn, in a system 
of double speeds, with the object of giving an increased 
quantity of twist in the finer descriptions of mule-yarn. 

The satisfactory execution of this important work at 
once placed the firm of Fairbairn and Lillie in the very 
front rank of engineering millwrights. Mr. Kennedy's 
good word was of itself a passport to fame and business, 
and as he was more than satisfied with the manner in 
which his mill machinery had been planned and exe- 
cuted, he sounded their praises in all quarters. Orders 
poured in upon them so rapidly, that they had difficulty 
in keeping pace with the demands of the trade. They 
then removed from their original shed to larger premises 
in Mather Street, where they erected additional lathes 
and other tool-machines, and eventually a steam-engine. 
They afterwards added a large cellar under an adjoining 
factory to their premises : and from time to time provided 
new means of turning out work with increased efficiency 
and despatch. In due course of time the firm erected a 
factory of their own, fitted with the most improved ma- 
chinery for turning out mill-work ; and they went on from 
one contract to another, until their reputation as engineers 
became widely celebrated. In 1826-7, they supplied the 
water-wheels for the extensive cotton-mUls belonging to 
Kirkman Finlay and Company, at Catrine Bank in Ayr- 
shire. These wheels are even at this day regarded as 
among the most perfect hydraulic machines in Em"ope. 
About the same time they supplied the mill-geai-ing and 



WILLIAM FAIRBAIRN. 39.1 

water-macliinery for Messrs. Escher and Company's large 
works at Zurich, among the largest cotton-manufactories 
on the Continent. 

In the meanwhile the industry of Manchester and the 
neighborhood, through which the firm had risen and pros- 
pered, was not neglected, but had the full benefit of the 
various improvements which they were introducing in 
mill-machinery. In the course of a few years an entire 
revolution was effected in the gearing. Ponderous masses 
of timber and cast-iron, with their enormoys bearings and 
couplings, gave place to slender rods of wrought-iron and 
light frames or hooks by which they were suspended. 
In like manner, lighter yet stronger wheels and pulleys 
were introduced, the whole arrangements were improved, 
and, the workmanship being greatly more accurate, fric- 
tion was avoided, and the speed was increased from about 
forty to upwards of three hundred revolutions a minute. 
The fly-wheel of the engine was also converted into a 
first motion by the formation of teeth on its periphery, by 
whixjh a considerable saving was effected both in cost and 
power. 

These great improvements formed quite §n era in the 
history of mill-machinery ; and exercised the most im- 
poi'tant influence on the development of the cotton, flax, 
silk, and other branches of manufacture. Mx. Fairbaim 
says the system introduced by his firm was at first 
strongly condemned by leading engineers, and it was with 
diflBculty that he could overcome the force of their oppo- 
sition ; nor was it until a wheel of thirty tons weight for 
a pair of engines of one hundred-horse-power each was 
erected and set to work, that their prognostications of 
failure entirely ceased. From that time the principles 
introduced by Mr. Fairbaim have been adopted wherever 
steam is employed as a motive power in mills. 



392 ESfDUSTKIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

Mr. Fairbairn and his partner had a hard uphill battle 
to fight while these improvements were being introduced ; 
but energy and perseverance, guided by sound judgment, 
secured their usual reward, and the firm became known as 
one of the most thriving and enterprising in Manchester. 
Long years after, when addressing an assembly of work- 
ingmen, Mr. Fairbairn, while urging the necessity of 
labor and application as the only sure means of self-im- 
provement, said, "I can tell you from experience, that 
there is no labor so sweet, none so consolatory, as that 
which is founded upon an honest, straightforward, and 
honorable ambition." The history of any prosperous 
business, however, so closely resembles every other, and 
its details are usually of so monotonous a character, that 
it is unnecessary for us to pursue this part of the subject; 
and we will content ourselves with briefly indicating the 
several further improvements introduced by Mr. Fairbairn 
in the mechanics of construction in the course of his long 
and useful career. 

His improvements in water-wheels were of great value, 
especially as regarded the new form of bucket which he 
introduced, with the object of facilitating the escape of 
the air as the water entered the bucket above, and its 
readmission as the water emptied itself out below. This 
arrangement enabled the water to. act upon the wheel 
with the maximum of efiect in all states of the river ; 
and it so generally recommended itself, that it very soon 
became adopted in most water-mills both at home and 
abroad.* 

His labors were not, however, confined to his own 

* The subject will be found fully treated in Mr. Fairbaim's own 
work, A Treatise on Mills and Mill- Work, embodying the results of his 
large experience. 



WILLIAM FAIRBAERN. S9S 

particular calling as a mill engineer, but were shortly 
directed to other equally important branches of the con- 
structive art. Thus he was among the first to direct his 
attention to iron ship building as a special branch of busi- 
ness. In 1829, Mr. Houston, of Johnstovra, near Paisley, 
launched a light boat on the Ardros^an Canal, for the 
purpose of ascertaining the speed at which it could be 
towed by horses with two or three persons on board. To 
the surprise of Mr. Houston and the other gentlemen 
present, it was found that the labor the horses had to 
perform in towing the boat was much greater at six or 
seven, than at nine miles an hour. This anomaly was 
very puzzling to the experimenters, and at the request of 
the CouncU of the Forth and Clyde Canal, Mr. Fairbairn, 
who had already become extensively known as a scien- 
tific mechanic, was requested to visit Scotland and insti- 
tute a series of experiments with light boats to determine 
the law of traction, and clear up, if possible, the apparent 
anomalies in Mr. Houston's experiments. This he did 
accordingly, and the results of his experiments were after- 
wards published. The trials extended over a series of 
years, and were conducted at a cost of several thousand 
pounds. The first experiments were made with vessels 
of wood, but they eventually led to the construction of 
iron vessels upon a large scale, and on an entirely new 
principle of construction, with angle-iron ribs and wrought- 
iron sheathing plates. The results proved most valuable, 
and had the effect of specially directing the attention of 
naval engineers to the employment of iron in ship-buUd- 
ing. 

BIr. Fairbairn himself fully recognized the value of the 
experiments, and proceeded to construct an iron vessel at 
his works at Manchester, in 1831, which went to sea the 
17* 



fSM INDUSTRIAL BIOGEAPHY. 

same year. Its success was such as to induce him to be- 
gin iron ship-building on a large scale, at the same time 
as the Messrs. Laird did at Birkenhead ; and in 1835, 
Mr. Fairbairn established extensive works at Millwall, 
on the Thames, — afterwards occupied by Mr. Scott Rus- 
sell, in whose yard the " Great Eastern " steamship was 
erected, — where, in the course of some fourteen years 
he built upwards of a hundred and twenty iron ships, 
some of them above two thousand tons burden. It was, 
in fact, the first great iron ship-building yard in Britain, 
and led the way in a branch of business which has since 
become of first-rate magnitude and importance. Mr, 
Fairbairn was a most laborious experimenter in iron, and 
investigated in great detail the subject of its strength, the 
value of different kinds of riveted joints compared with 
the solid plate, and the distribution of the material 
throughout the structure, as well as the form of the ves- 
sel itself. It would indeed be difficult to over-estimate 
the value of his investigations on these points in the ear- 
lier stages of this now highly important branch of the 
national industry. 

To facilitate the manufacture of his iron-sided ships, 
Mr. Fairbairn, about the year 1839, invented a machine 
for riveting boiler-plates by steam-power. The usual 
method by which this process had before been executed 
was by hand-hammers, worked by men placed at each 
side of the plate to be riveted, acting simultaneously on 
both sides of the bolt. But this process was tedious and 
expensive, as well as clumsy and imperfect ; and some 
more rapid and precise method of fixing the plates firmly 
together was urgently wanted. Mr. Fairbairn's machine 
completely supplied the want. By its means the rivet 
was driven into its place, and firmly fastened there 



WILLIAM FAIRBAIRN. 395 

bj a couple of strokes of a hammer impelled by steam. 
Aided by the Jacquard punching-machine of Roberts, 
the riveting of plates of the largest size has thus be- 
come one of the simplest operations in iron-manufac- 
turing. 

The thorough knowledge which Mr. Fairbairn pos- 
sessed of the strength of wrought-iron in the form of the 
hollow beam (which a wrought-iron ship really is), nat- 
urally led to his being consulted by the late Robert 
Stephenson, as to the structures by means of which it 
was proposed to span the estuary of the Conway and the 
Straits of Menai ; and the result was the Conway and 
Britannia Tubular Bridges, the history of wdiich we have 
fully described elsewhere.* There is no reason to doubt 
that by far the largest share of the merit of working out 
the practical details of those structures, and thus realizing 
Robert Stephenson's magnificent idea of the tubular 
bridge, belongs to Mr. Fairbairn. 

In aU matters connected with the qualities and strength 
of iron, he came to be regarded as a first-rate authority, 
and his advice was often sought and highly valued. The 
elaborate experiments instituted by him as to the strength 
of iron of aU kinds have formed the subject of various 
papers which he has read before the British Association, 
the Royal Society, and the Literary and Philosophical 
Society of Manchester. His practical inquiries as to the 
strength of boilers have led to his being frequently called 
upon to investigate the causes of boiler explosions, on 
which subject he has published many elaborate reports. 
The study of this subject led him to elucidate the law 

* laves of the Engineers, Vol. III. 416 - 440. See also An Account of- 
the Construction of the Britannia and Conway Tubular Bridges. By 
WiUiam Fairbairn, C. E. 1849. 



396 INDUSTRIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

according to wHch the density of steam varies throughout 
an extensive range of pressures and atmospheres, — in 
singular confirmation of what had before been provision- 
ally calculated from the mechanical theory of heat. His 
discovery of the true method of preventing the tendency 
of tubes to collapse, by dividing the flues of long boilers 
into short lengths by means of stiffening rings, arising out 
of the same investigation, was one of the valuable results 
of his minute study of the subject ; and is calculated to 
be of essential value in the manufacturing districts by 
diminishing the chances of boiler explosions, and saving 
the lamentable loss of life which has during the last 
twenty years been occasioned by the malconstruction 
of boilers. Among Mr. Fairbairn's most recent in- 
quiries are those conducted by him at the instance of 
the British Government relative to the construction 
of iron-plated ships, his report of which has not yet 
been made public, most probably for weighty political 



"We might also refer to the practical improvements 
which Mr. Fairbaim has been instrumental in intro- 
ducing in the construction of buildings of various kinds 
by the use of iron. He has himself erected numerous 
iron structures, and pointed out the road which other 
manufacturers have readily followed. "I am one of 
those," said he, in his " Lecture on the Progress of En- 
gineering," " who have great faith in iron walls and iron 
beams ; and although I have both spoken and written 
much on the subject, I cannot too forcibly recommend 
it to public attention. It is now twenty years since I 
constructed an iron house, with the machinery of a corn- 
mill, for Halil Pasha, then Seraskier of the Turkish army 
at Constantinople. I believe it was the first iron house 



WILLIAM FAIRBAIRN. 397 

built in this country ; and it was constructed at the works 
at Millwall, London, in 1839." * 

Since then iron structures of all kinds have been erected : 
iron lighthouses, iron-and-crystal palaces, iron churches, 
and iron bridges. Iron roads have long been worked by 
iron locomotives ; and before many years have passed a 
telegraph of iron wire will probably be found circling the 
globe. "We now use iron roofs, iron bedsteads, iron ropes, 
and ii'on pavement ; and even the famous " wooden walls 
of England " are rapidly becoming reconstructed of iron. 
In short, we are in the midst of what Mr. Worsaae has 
characterized as the Age of Iron. 

At the celebration of the opening of the North Wales 
Railway at Bangor, almost within sight of his iron bridge 
across the Straits of Menai, Robert Stephenson said, 
" "We are daily producing from the bowels of the earth 
a raw material, in its crude state apparently of no worth, 
but which, when converted into a locomotive engine, flies 

* Useful Information for Engineers, 2d series, 225. The mere list 
of Mr. Fairbairn's writings would occupy considerable space ; for, not- 
withstanding his great labors as an engineer, he has also been an in- 
dustrious writer. His Papers on Iron, read at different times before 
the British Association, the Royal Society, and the Literary and Philo- 
sophical Institution of Manchester, are of great value. The treatise on 
"Iron" in the Encydopcedia Briiannica is from his pen, and he has 
contributed a highly interesting paper to Dr. Scoffern's Useful Metals 
and their Alloys on the Application of Iron to the purposes of Ordnance, 
Machinery, Bridges, and House and Ship Building. Another valuable 
but less known contribution to Iron literature is his Report on Machin- 
ery in General, published in the Reports on the Paris Universal Exhi- 
bition of 1855. The experiments conducted by Mr. Fairbairn for the 
purpose of proving the excellent properties of iron for shipbuilding, — 
the account of which was published in the Transactions of the Royal 
Society, — eventually led to his further experiments to determine the 
strength and form of the Britannia and Conway Tubular Bridges, plate- 
girders, and other constructions, the resiilt of which was to establish 
quite a new era in the history of bridge as well as ship building. 



398 INDUSTRIAL BIOGRAPHY. 

over bridges of the same material, with a speed exceeding 
that of the bird, advancing wealth and comfort throughout 
the country. Such are the powers of that all-civilizing 
instrument, Ii-on." 

Iron indeed plays a highly important part in modern 
civilization. Out of it are formed alike the sword and the 
ploughshare, the cannon and the printing-press ; and whUe 
civilization continues partial and half-developed, as it stUl 
is, our liberties and our industry must necessarily in a 
great measure depend for their protection upon the excel- 
lence of our weapons of war as well as on the superiority 
of our instruments of peace. Hence the skill and inge- 
nuity displayed in the invention of rifled guns and artil- 
lery, and iron-sided ships and batteries, the fabrication 
of which would be impossible but for the extraordinary 
development of the iron-manufacture, and the marvellous 
power and precision of our tool-making machines, as de- 
scribed in preceding chapters. 

" Our strength, wealth, and commerce," said Mr. Cobden 
in the course of a recent debate in the House of Commons, 
" grow out of the skilled labor of the men working in met- 
als. They are at the foundation of our manufacturing 
greatness ; and in case you were attacked, they would at 
once be available, with their hard hands and skilled brains, 
to manufacture your muskets and your cannon, your shot 
and your shell. What has given us our Armstrongs, 
Whitworths, and Fairbairns, but the free industry of this 
country ? If you can build three times more steam-engines 
than any other country, and have threefold the force of 
mechanics, to whom and to what do you owe that, but to 
the men who have trained them, and to those principles 
of commerce out of which the wealth of the country has 
grown ? We who have some hand in doing that, are not 



WILLIAM FAIRBAIEN. 399 

ignorant that we have been and are increasing the strength 
of the country in proportion as we are raising up skilled 
artisans." * 

The reader who has followed us up to this point will 
have observed that handicraft labor was the first stage 
of the development of human power, jind that machinery- 
has been its last and highest. The unciviUzed man began 
with a stone for a hammer, and a splinter of flint for a 
chisel, each stage of his progress being marked by an im- 
provement in his tools. Every machine calculated to 
save labor or increase production was a substantial addi- 
tion to his power over the material resources of nature, 
enabhng him to subjugate them more effectually to his 
wants and uses ; and eveiy extension of machinery has 
served to introduce new classes of the population to the 
enjoyment of its benefits. In early times the products 
of skilled industry were for the most part luxuries in- 
tended for the few, whereas now the most exquisite tools 
and engines are employed in producing articles of ordi- 
nary consumption for the great mass of the community. 
Machines with millions of fingers work for millions of 
purchasers, — for the poor as well as the rich ; and while 
the machinery thus used em-iches its owners, it no less 
enriches the public with its products. 

Much of the progress to which we have adverted has 
been the result of the skill and industry of our own time. 
" Indeed," says ISIr. Fairbairn, " the mechanical operations 
of the present day could not have been accomplished at 
any cost thirty years ago ; and what was then considered 
impossible is now performed with an exactitude that never 
faUs to accomplish the end in view." For this we are 
mainly indebted to the almost creative power of modem 

* House of Commons Debate, 7th July, 1862. 



400 INDUSTEIAL BIOGEAPHY. 

machine-tools, and tlie facilities which they present for 
the production and reproduction of other machines. We 
also owe much to the mechanical agencies employed to 
drive them. Early inventors yoked wind and water to 
sails and wheels, and made them work machinery of vari- 
ous kinds ; but modern inventors have availed themselves 
of the far more swift and powerful, yet docile force of 
steam, which has now laid upon it the heaviest share 
of the bm-den of toil, and indeed become the universal 
drudge. Coal, water, and a little oil, are all that the 
steam-engine, with its bowels of iron and heart of fire, 
needs to enable it to go on working night and day, with- 
out rest or sleep. Yoked to machinery of almost infinite 
variety, the results of vast ingenuity and labor, the Steam- 
engine pumps water, di'ives spindles, thrashes corn, prints 
books, hammers iron, ploughs land, saws timber, drives 
piles, impels ships, works railways, excavates docks; and, 
in a word, asserts an almost unbounded supremacy over 
the materials which enter into the daily use of mankind, 
for clothing, for labor, for defence, for household purposes, 
for locomotion, for food, or for instruction. 



INDEX. 



Abacus, the Greek, 307. 

African iron, excellence ot, 31. 

Agriculture, early, — legend, 22. 

Agriculture, improvement of, 91. 

Ancient canoes, boats, and cora- 
cles, how made, 20. 

Ancient weapons and implements, 
19, 20, 23, 24. 

Armorers in early times, their im- 
portance, 28, 35. 

Armor-plated ships and the steam- 
hammer, 347, 349. 

Ashburnham Iron-Works, 56. 

Atlas Works, Sharp, Eoberts, & 
Co., 324. 

Babbage, C, calcnl. machine, 307. 
Bacon, Anth., at Merthyr Tydvil, 

166. 
Bacon, Friar, predicts inventions, 

214. 
Bairds, the, of Gartsherrie, 203. 
Balloon, the, an ancient invention, 

216. 
Bank, public, credit based on land, 

9S. 
Baude, Peter, gun-founder, 55. 
Bentham, Sir S., his block-making 

and other machines, 268. 
Bessemer, Henry, his process of 

steel manufacture, 145. 
Black-band iron-stone, its value, 

180, 184, 189, 200, 203. 
Black, Prof., and James Watt, 176. 
Blast, the hot, invented, 180, 187, 

197-202. 
Blasts for furnaces, 30, 61, 71. 
Blewstone, Dr., attempts to smelt 

iron with pit-coal, 105. 
Block-making machinery, 270 - 

273. 



Bourdon, M., adopts the steam- 
hammer, 347. 

Bramah, Joseph, 228 ; his birth and 
early life ; a farm boy ; his inven- 
tive faculty ; is apprenticed to a 
carpenter, 229; goes to London; 
commences business; takes pa- 
tents for water-closets; makes 
pumps, &c., 230 ; invents his 
lock, 231; Maudslay assists him 
as leading workman; his tools 
for lock-making, 232, 235; his 
hydrostatic machine ; his hy- 
draulic press and machinery, 
233, 242 ; improvements in 
pumping-machinery, 276 ; his 
beer-pump ; patents for improve- 
ments in steam-engines ; grudge 
against Watt, 237 ; his machine- 
tools, 238; numbering-machine, 
240 ; pen-cutter and other inven- 
tions, 240-242 ; practises as Civil 
Engineer ; constructs water- 
works at Norwich; his death, 
242 ; his excellent character, 
243; the first-rate mechanics 
who served with him, 244; his 
difficulty in finding competent 
workmen, 248. 

Bridge, the first iron, by Darby, 
119. 

Brindley, James, and Dr. Koebuck, 
175. 

Britannia tubular bridge, 395. 

Bronze period in historv, the, 23, 
25. 

Brunei, Sir M. I., his education for 
a priest, 265 ; enters the French 
Navy; is paid off; sails for New 
York ; his future wife, 266 ; sur- 
veyor and architect, &;c. ; comes 



402 



INDEX. 



BUILDINGS. 

to England; his numerous in- 
ventions 267 ; liis block-making 
machinery, 268. 
Buildings, the first iron, 396. 

Cadell,, William, Cockenzie, iron- 
working and nail-making, 172, 
173. 

Calculating-machines and appara- 
tus, 307-311. 

Cannon first cast, 54. 

Cardiff" Canal constructed, 167. 

Carrouades made at Carron, 174.- 

Carron Iron- Works, 173, 175. 

Carteret, Captain, the Freewill Is- 
landers, and Iron, 17. 

China, printing of great antiquity 
in, 215; suspension bridges, 217; 
coal-gas, anoesthetic agents, 218. 

Civil wars and the iron trade, 64. 

Clement, Joseph, birth, parentage; 
his father a hand-loom weaver, 
also a naturalist and amateur 
mechanic, 289 ; Joseph learns 
thatching and slating; his liking 
for mechanics, 290; reads works 
on mechanics; makes a turning- 
latiie; turns and performs on 
various musical instruments ; 
makes microscope and tele- 
scope; makes screw die-stocks, 
291; gives up slating; employed 
to made power-looms at Kirby 
Stephen; his wages; removes to 
Carlisle, then to Glasgow, where 
Peter Nicholson teaches him 
drawing, 292 ; removes to Aber- 
deen; his improvements in tools; 
attends college ; proceeds to Lon- 
don, 294; employed by Bramah 
as chief draughtsman and super- 
intendent; chief draughtsman to 
Maudslay and Field, 297 ; begins 
business ; his skill as a draughts- 
man ; invents drawing-instru- 
ment, 298; invents drawing-ta- 
ble; his inventive faculty and 
. delight in its exercise; his im- 
provements in the slide-lathe 
described, 299; his self-adjust- 
ing double-driving centre-chuck 
and two-armed driver, 801; his 
fluted-taps and dies and screw- 



cutting machinery, 302 ; invents 
his planing-machine, 804 ; de- 
scription of planing-machine, 
305; employed to make Bab- 
bage's calculating-machine, 307; 
great cost of the machine, 310; 
interruption of the work, 311; 
his steam-whistle, 312; his char- 
acter and death, 313. 

Coal and coke in iron manufacture ; 
Dudley's process, 71 ; coke first 
regularly employed, 112 ; in- 
creased use of, 108, 112; pit-coal 
successfully used by K. Ford, 
113. 

Coal, proposed tax on, 123. 

Coalbrookdale Iron- Works, 108- 
111; extensions of works, 114, 
123. 

Cobden, K., on metal-working, 398. 

Collet, Peter van, inventor of ex- 
plosive shells, 65. 

Congreve-rocket, Eastern origin, 
317. 

Contract for rails, St. Paul's 
Churchyard, 61. 

Conway Tubular Bridge, 395 ; the 
punching-machine, 329. 

Cook, Captain, the South Sea Isl- 
anders, and iron, 17, 18. 

Coi't, Henry, birth and parentage; 
a navy agent, 148 ; experiments 
to improve manufacture of Eng- 
lish iron; takes a foundery at 
Fontley and becomes partner 
with Jellicoe, 149; his patents, 
150, 153; his improvements de- 
scribed, 151-154; his processes 
adopted by others, 153 ; greatly 
increases the production, 155; 
his iron approved by the Ad- 
miralty, 157 ; Adam Jellicoe's 
public defalcations involve Cort, 
158 ; his property and patents 
seized ; his partner put into pos- 
session to Cort's exclusion, 160; 
his inventions practically made 
over to the public, 160; he is 
ruined, and appeals in vain to 
have his patents restored ; a 
pension of 200/. a year granted 
to him ; his death, 163 ; Cort the 
founder of our iron-aristocracy; 



INDEX. 



403 



his children a^ed, infirm, and 
poor, 164; Mr. 5'airb.iirn's opin- 
ion as to the value of Cort's un- 
requited inventions, 169. 

Cotton trade, the, progi-ess of, 381. 

Craftsmen, trade secrets, 67. 

Cranege, Geoi-ge and Thomas, in- 
vent reverberatory furnace, 115 ; 
patent taken out, 118. 

Crawshaj, Richard, adopts Cort's 
processes, 156, 167; his birth- 

Elace and early life ; his ride to 
ondon, 164; a shop-boy and 
porter; succeeds to his master's 
business, 165; takes iron-works 
at Merthyr %dvil, 166; greatly 
increases production of iron ; 
projects and makes canal to 
Cardiff; is known as the " Iron 
King"; his descendants, 168. 

Daguereottpe anticipated, 218. 

Darby, Abraham, of Coalbrook- 
dale, his parentage, apprentice- 
ship, religion ; partners at Baptist 
Mills as malt mill-makers and 
brass and iron-founders; manu- 
facture of cast-iron pots ; learns 
the art in Holland ; brings back 
skilled Dutch workmen, 109 ; 
takes out patent, 110; removes 
to Coalbrookdale, 111 ; increased 
trade ; uses coke for furnaces ; his 
death, 112 ; Abraham Darby, 
son ; and Abraham, grandson; 
after a time become iron-foun- 
ders, 112. 

Darby, Abraham, III., casts and 
erects the first iron bridge, 119. 

Davy, Sir H., and sun-pictures, 
219. 

Dean, Forest, and iron manufac- 
ture, 34, 45, 48, 64, 102. 

Dublin, iron manufactm-e and the 
Unionists, 377. 

Dudley, Lord, and iron manufac- 
ture", 69. 

Dudley, Dud, birth and parentage, 
69 ; education ; joins his father in 
the iron "manufacture; employs 
pit-coal for fuel, and succeeds; 
takes out patent; improves the 
blast, 70; loss by a flood, 72; 



FAIRBAIEN. 

opposed by ironmasters, 73 ; his 
misfortunes, works destroyed by 
rioters, 75; Charles I. renews his 
patent; civil war; joins the Koy- 
alist forces, 75; appointed mili- 
tary engineer, 77 ; taken prisoner, 
78; escapes from jail, — is re- 
captured ; sentenced to death, 
and again escapes, 79; his utter 
destitution and unsuccessful 
partnership, 80 ; keeps his se- 
cret ; resumes smelting ; his 
death, 83; his invention born 
before its time, 105. 

Dudley, town of, about A. D. 1600, 
69; abundance of coal, number 
of smiths, 69. 

Dunkirk port, survey, Yarranton, 
103. 

Dunstan, St., a blacksmith, 49. 

Egwin, St., and smiths of Alcester, 

48. 
Electric telegraph an old invention, 

219. 
Epochs in civilization, 23. 

Fairbairn, Sir P., flax-machin- 
ery (note), 320. 

Fairbairn, William, on machine- 
tools, 260, 361 ; his birth ; father's 
inteixourse with Sir W. Scott in 
childhood, 362; education; life 
in Rossshire, 363 ; excellent 
mother; domestic employment, 
365; a laborer at Kelso bridge, 
367 ; leads coals at Percy Main 
Colliery, South Shields ; appren- 
ticed engineer; his scheme for 
self-culture, 368 ; promoted to 
take charge of the pumps and 
engine, 370 ; makes the acquaint- 
ance of George Stephenson, 370; 
is next employed at Newcastle 
and Bedlington ; voyage to Lon- 
don and adventures, 371 ; the 
" Union " prevents him from 
working, 373; travels and gets. 
work at Cheshunt; returns to 
London and obtains employ- 
ment, 375 ; his first order a sau- 
sage chopping-machine ; travels 
in England and Wales for work 



404 



INDEX. 



and experience ; sails to Dublin, 
376; constructs nail-making ma- 
chinery; the Unionists forbid its 
use, and Dublin loses its iron 
trade ; sails for Liverpool j, goes 
to Manchester, 377 ; gets em- 
ployment; settles and marries 
in Manchester; begins business; 
his first job an iron conservatory, 
379 ; enters into partnership wiih 
Lillie ; their eiforts to obtain 
work; employed by A. and S. 
Murray, 380 ; recommended to 
MacConnel and Kennedy, 381; 
make important improvements 
in mill-gearing, 389; rapid in- 
crease of business, 390; supply 
improved water-wheels in Ayr- 
shire and at Zurich, 391; nature 
of the improvements, 392; Fair- 
bairn's experiments concerning 
law of traction in boats; con- 
structs the first iron vessels; be- 
gins building iron ships, 393; 
investigations as to the strength 
of iron ; invents riveting-ma- 
chine ; his connection with the 
Britannia and Conway Tubular 
Bridges, 394 ; reports on iron 
and on boiler explosions, 395 ; 
the first constructor of iron 
buildings, 396. 

Ferrara, And. de, and his swords, 
42. 

Ferrers, Earldom of, 38. 

Flax machinery, 318, 319. 

Flemish weavers and their ma- 
chinery, hostility to, 208. 

workmen at JShelfield, 133. 

Flint implements, 18, 25. 

Ford, Eichard, successful use of 
pit-coal in smelting iron, 113, 
149. 

Forges, early, where situate, 50. 

Fox, James, of Derby, a butler, 
314; his master assists him to 
begin business as a machinist; 
his lace machinery and lathes 
celebrated ; his planing-machuie 
described, 315. 

French artisans, turning and me- 
chanical ingenuity, 257. 

Fuller family, origin of the, 57. 



INVENTIONS. 

Gale, Leonard, iron manufact., 58. 
Garay, B. de, the steamboat, 215 

221. 
Gas-meter, water, of EobertB, 323. 
Glamorgan, early Iron-works, 63. 
Glasgow, ancient canoes found at, 

20. 
Gun founding, first, in England, 54. 

a French invention, 55. 

Great Britain steamship and the 

steam-hammer, 343, 344. 

Hammer ponds, 53, 56-61. 

Hawks, William, Newcastle-on-T., 
169. 

Heath, Jos., his patent for steel, 187. 

Heckling-machine, the, 319. 

Hogge, Ralph, gun-founder, 55. 

Homfray, Samuel, adopts Cort's 
processes, 156; joins Grawshay 
in constructing canal to Cardiff, 
168. 

Houghton, John, wind saw-mill, 
207. 

Humphries, F., of the Great Brit- 
ain, 343. 

Huntsman, Benjamin, inventor of 
cast-steel, 135, 137; birth, par- 
entage ; clockmaker ; repairs 
locks and machinery; amateur 
surgeon and oculist, 136; experi- 
ments at Doncaster, 136 ; process 
of making cast-steel, 138; re- 
jected at Sheflield ; his steel 
finds a market in France, 139; 
the Sheffield makers necessi- 
tated to use it, 140; his secret 
stolen by Walker, 141; increased 
demand for his steel ; his char- 
acter and death, 144. 

Hydraulic-press of Bramah, 233 j 
leather collar invented, 235. 

Inland navigation, schemes for 
improving, 89. 

Inventions, no retrogression in, 
210 ; the human race the true 
inventor ; inventions gradual, 
211 ; process of invention ; ob- 
scure origin of some inventions, 
212 ; others born before their 
time, 213; old inventions and 
arts revived, 215, 216. 



INDEX. 



405 



INVENTIONS. 

Inventions, disputed ; — the watch, 
pulley, eccentric, screw-cutting, 
printing, penny-postage, the 
steamboat, the spinning-ma- 
chine, the balance-spring, the 
locomotive, &c., 221. 

simultaneous ; — the quad- 
rant, electrotyping, the safety- 
lamp, 222. 

, progressive steps in, 223. 

Inventors, hinderances to, through 
incompetent workmen, Watt, 
224 ; Bramah, 248. 

forgotten, 220. 

Iron ; — I. scraps prized by S. Sea 
Islanders, 17 - 19 ; I. and civiliza- 
tion, 2; I. necessary to settled 
life, 21 ; the I. period in history', 
23, 25; I. late in coming into 
use ; intense heat required to 
fuse, 26 5 gold used to save I. j 
its comparative value, 27, 82,41, 
45: I. the "Mars" of the Eo- 
mans ; wars of the Israelites and 
Philistines and I. ; the early 
Turkish empire and I., 28 ; Af- 
rican 1., 31; I. and the early 
history of Britain, 31, 40, 47 ; 
Phoenicians and I., 31 ; British 
war chariots of I. apocryphal, 
31 ; I. as currency, 32 ; I. intro- 
duced by Roman colonists, 33 ; 
Scotland in early times and 
scarcity of I., 41 ; I. and national 
defences, 45, 398. 

Iron-smelting and manufacture ; — 
I. smelting discovered, 28 ; Ro- 
mans and I. manufacture in 
Britain, 83 ; remains of early I. 
manufacture, 33, 50, 51, 53; re- 
mains of I. manufacture, Forest 
of Dean, 34, 48 ; I. produce, Fur- 
ness, Lancas., 41; I. forges in 
early times; where situate, 51; 
early manufacture of I. in Sus- 
sex, 35, 52, 59, 64; gun-founding, 
64, 55; Ashburnham I. works, 
56 ; I. mills, 56, 61; I furnaces, 
ancient and modern, compara- 
tive produce, 61 ; I. smelting, 
enormous consumption of tim- 
ber, 62, 65, 70 ; migrations of 
I. manufacture ; civil war ; 



JACQUARD. 

■works of Royalists destroyed, 64 ; 
smelting by pit-coal, 66; Sturte- 
vant's patent ; Rovensou's patent, 
68 ; Dud Dudley's patent for 
smelting with coal ; improves 
blast; coke first used, 71; un- 
successful attempts at smelting 
with coal of Oliver Cromwell, 
Dagney, Major Wildman, and 
Capt. Copley, 81; Col. Proger's 
attempt, 82 ; tin-plate manufac- 
ture, 92 ; Dr. Blewstone's at- 
tempt to smelt with coal, 105; 
decay of I. manufacture in Eng- 
land, 107; Coalbrookdale Works; 
increased consumption of coal 
and coke, 108, 111; manufactui-e 
of cast I. pots, 109 ; Ford's suc- 
cessful use of pit-coal, 113 ; Rey- 
nolds's improved processes in I. 
manufacture ; the reverberatory 
furnace invented, 115; first I. 
rails for tramways, and first I. 
bridge, 119; great increase in 
I. trade, 123; Onions' s patented 
process, 150 ; Cort's improve- 
ments in I. manufacture, his pa- 
tents, 151 - 154 ; Can-on I. Works 
started, 173 ; Dr. Roebuck's pa- 
tent for treating pig I., 149, 174; 
Roebuck improves blowing ap- 
paratus, 175 ; Mushet's experi- 
ments in metallurgv, and impor- 
tant results, 180 - 187 ; Neilson 
invents the hot-blast, 180 - 189 ; 
his patent, 199; first I. ships, 
393 ; first I. buildings, 396. See 
Steel. 
Iron Trade ; — I. exported by the 
Romans, 34; early supply of I. 
from Spain, 44; early importa- 
tions of I., 51, 66; I. exported 
by England in Q. Elizabeth's 
reign, 59 ; Raleigh on export 
of ordnance — export forbidden, 
59 ; legislative checks to I. trade, 
63; increased demand for I., and 
increased importations, 106; in- 
creased I. trade; proposed tax 
on coal, 123 ; increase in Scotch 
I. trade, 179, 202. 

Jacquard punching-machine, 329. 



406 



JELLICOE. 

Jellicoe, Ad., his defolcations and 
Cort's misfortunes, 158, 162. 

, Samuel, partner with Cort, 

149, 159. 

KELLY,Wm., self-acting mule, 326. 

Kendrew, John, Darlington, flax- 
machinery (note), 317- 

Kennedy, John, of Manchester ; his 
early life ; straitened circum- 
stances of family ; limited edu- 
cation, 382, 383 ; journey to Lan- 
cashire, 384: apprenticeship as 
carpenter ; begins business in 
Manchester with Sandford arid 
MacConnel as machine-makers 
and mule-spinners, 386; progress 
of the firm ; his knowledge and 
attainments; Watt and Stephen- 
son his friends, 387, 388. 

Kinneil House and its distinguished 
tenants, 175 - 177 ; Watt's first 
engine erected there, 177. 

Knives, clasp tools, &c. ; early pro- 
duction of, 132. 

Lake-dwellers, the Swiss, 24. 
Lathe, the screw, 323. 

, the slide, 255, 260, 276, 300. 

, and turning, middle ages, 256. 

, the hand, 261. 

Leeds, bell-pits, early iron-works, 

50. 
Lesage, G. L. (1760), Telegraphy, 

220. 
Lithogi-aphy, an art long known, 

215. 
Locks ; — of the ancient Egyptians ; 

Barron's tumbler-lock; Bramah's 

lock picked by Hobbs, 231, 232. 
Locomotive engines, 319, 328. 

Machts'b-tools and hand work, 
225, 227, 260. 

Machine-tool making, pioneers in, 
361. 

Machinery, its introduction op- 
posed, 208-210; its beneficent 
uses and supremacy, 400. 

Magnus, A., and anaesthetic 
agents, 218. 

Marshall, C. (1753), telegraphy, 
219. 



MONNIER. 

Maudslay, Henry, Bramah's lead- 
ing workman, 233 ; invents leath- 
er collar for hydraulic-press, 235, 
253 ; birth and parentage, 245 ; 
powder-monkey at Woolwich 
Arsenal; put into the carpen- 
ters' shop; prefers the smithj% 
and is removed to it; his trivet- 
making and dexterity at the 
forge, 247 ; sent for and em- 
ployed by Bramah, 249; rapid 
improvement; the hero of his 
shop; appointed head foi'eman; 
his filial afiection, 251 ; his in- 
ventions in tool-making, 252; 
begins business; his first smithy 
and first job, 254; invents the 
slide-rest, 255, 260, 263; it en- 
counters ridicule, but becomes 
established; is the parent of the 
planing-machine, and other self- 
acting tools; Nasmyth's eulogi- 
um, 264; the slide-rest used for 
Brunei's ship's-blocks manufac- 
ture, 265, 269; makes the ma- 
chinery for Brunei ; its intricacy 
and many parts, 272 ; increased 
business and eminence of the 
firm of Maudslay and Field ; 
patents a steam-engine, 274; im- 
proves the marine-engine ; in- 
vents the punching-machine, 
275 ; further improvements in 
the lathe ; improvements in 
screw-cutting, 276 ; his neatness 
and love of order, 278 ; pride in 
the excellence of his work, 280; 
Nasmyth's description of his 
character, 281 ; his distinguished 
friends and visitors, 283; traits 
of character, 284; indiflference to 
patents ; mode of estimating in- 
ventors and others, 285 ; his 
death, 287. 

Mechanical contrivance and skill, 
and education, 289. 

Metals, fusible range of, 26. 

Miller, Patrick, and the steamboat, 
216, 221. 

Mill-gearing, Murray, 320; im- 
proved by Fairbai'rn, 389. 

Monnier, Le (1746), 
219. 



INDEX. 



407 



MURRAY. 

Murray, Matt., of Leeds, his plan- 
ing-machine described ; his birth 
and parentage, 317; apprenticed 
to a blacksmith; employed by 
Marshal] of Leeds ; im])rove3 
flax-machinery, 318 ; commences 
business; his improvements on 
the steam-engine; jealousy of 
Boulton and Watt ; his D slide- 
valve ; makes locomotive for 
Blenkinsop, 318, 319 ; invents 
the heckling-machine, 319; his 
skill in mill-gearing, 320 ; im- 
provements in tools } his death, 
321. 

Mushet, David, discovers ' the 
black-band iron-stone ; birth 
and early life ; accountant at 
Clyde Iron- Works, ISO ; success- 
ful experiments in assaying, 181 ; 
account of his labors, 183; his 
" Papers on Iron and Steel," 186; 
results of his labors; discovers 
Titanium ; his writings ; liis 
death, 187. 

Nasmyth, Alex., pamter, 334; a 
dexterous mechanic ; experi- 
ments with paddle-boats, &c., 
335. 

Nasmyth, James, on the slide-rest, 
263; on Maudslay's merits, 281; 
traditional origin of the Nasmyth 
family, 333; James, his birth 
and education, and family, 335 ; 
story of his life told by him- 
self,'336; makes his first steam- 
engine ; makes a steam-car- 
riage for common roads ; goes to 
Loudon, 337 ; is emploj'ed by 
Maudslay as his own private 
workman; modest estimate of 
his own worth in wages, 339 ; his 
economy and management in 
London; returns to Edinburgh, 
340; begins business in Man- 
chester; establishes the Bridge- 
water foundery; the invention 
of the steam-hammer, 341 ; cir- 
cumstances which led to the in- 
vention, 342 - 345 ; the invention 
lies dormant, 346; his surprise 
on seeing his steam-hammer at 



NOKWICH. 

work in Fr.ance, 347 ; secures his 
invention by a patent; beauty 
and precision of action of the 
hammer, 348; its important uses 
in modern engineering, 349, 350 ; 
invents the steam pile-driving 
machine, 351; it is emploj'ed by 
Robert Stephenson on his great 
works; his pyramidal steam-en- 
gine and steam-arm planing-raa- 
chine, 352; his circular cutter 
for toothed wheels ; his improve- 
ments in iron-founding, 353; his 
energy and common sense, and 
how he Scotched a strike, 354 ; 
his opinion that the effect of 
strikes is to stimulate invention, 
355; retirement from business; 
his artistic taste and skill; his 
speculations on the cuneiform 
character, 356 ; constructs a 
telescope; his astronomical re- 
searches and wonderful discov- 
eries, described by Sir John 
Herschel, 357. 

Nasmyth, Jean, martyr to igno- 
rance; burnt, 360. 

Napier's logarithms, 308. 

Neilson, James B., invents the hot- 
blast, 180 ; birth and parentage, 
190; bfecomes engine-fireman; 
apprenticed as working engineer 
under his brother; colliery en- 
gine-wright, 191; foreman, then 
manager and engineer of the 
Glasgow Gas- Works ; his self- 
education ; improvements in g;is 
manufacture ; his Workmen's 
Institute, 193 ; experiments in 
iron-smelting, 195; invents the 
hot-blast, 196; his patent and 
partners, 199 ; patent right dis- 
puted, but established, 200; his 
retirement from business ; his 
philanthropy and well-earned 
honors, 201. 

New Zealand, tools of natives, 18, 
19. 

Noblemen, iron manufacturers, 56 ; 
amateur mechanics, 259. 

Norwich water-works, Bramah, 
242. 



408. 



INDEX. 



OLDFIELD. 

Oldfield, Thomas, and swash- 
work turning, 257. 

Onions, Peter, his patent, 150. 

Ordnance, export forbidden, 59. 

Ordnance, modern, and the steam- 
hammer, 349, 350. 

Otaheite, tools of natives, 18, 19. 

Papin, Denis, and atmospheric 
locomotion, 216 ; anassthetic 
agents, 218-220. 

Penn and Sons, engines of the 
" Warrior," 227 ; character of 
their worlc, 280. 

Penn, Wm., an iron manufacturer, 
56. 

Pile-driving machine, steam, 351. 

Planing-machine, the, for iron, 304, 
315, 321, 324, 331. 

, for wood, 238, 269. 

Play, Le, reports, &c., on cast-steel 
manufactures, 135, 141, 147. 

Plumier's work on Turning, 257, 
258. 

Printing, the art known to the Ro- 
mans ;its antiquity in China, 215. 

Puncliiug-machue, 275, 329. 

Kaby, a., and Cort'sinvention,156. 

Eails, iron, for tramroads, the first, 
119. 

Raleigh, Sir W., on exporting ord- 
nance, 59. 

Reaping-machine in 1577, 216. 

Reed, Henry, and steel-mauufac- 
ture, 146. 

Registry of real estate, Yarranton's 
plan, 99. 

Religious persecutions and diffu- 
sion of skilled industry, 93. 

Reverberatory furnace, 113, 154. 

Reynolds, Richard, Coalbrookdale; 
birth; marries daughter of Ab. 
Darby II. ; joins the Coalbrook- 
dale 'firm, 114 ; his improved 
processes of iron-manufacture, 
115; invents cast-iron rails for 
tramroads, 119 ;his remonstrance 
against the tlireatened tax on 
coal, 123; retires from the firm; 
the beauty of his character, 126 ; 
liis habits ; incidents in his life, 
127 ; his death, 130. 



ROEBUCK. 

Reynolds, Wm., his improvements 
in mining ; his inclined planes for 
working canals, 125; his assist- 
ance to Telford, 126 ; adopts 
Cort's processes ; invites Cort 
to trial of process at Ketley, 156. 

River navigations, plans of Yarrau- 
ton, 89, 91. 

Riveting-machine, 394. 

Roberts, Richard, of Manchester, 
223; most prolific as an inventor; 
birth; a quarryman; liking for 
mechanics, 32i ; a pattern-ma- 
ker; drawn for the militia and 
runs away ; gets employment in 
Manchester, 322; goes to Lon- 
don ; employed by Maudslay ; 
returns to Manchester; his sec- 
tor for sizing wheels ; improved 
screw-lathe ; wet gas-meter .; 
planing-machine, 323 : his wheel- 
cutting engine, broaching-ma- 
chine, slotting-machine, &c. ; his 
machine for making weavers'- 
reeds the commencement of the 
firm of Sharp, Roberts, & Co.; 
Atlas Works; his power-looms; 
his famous self-acting mule, 324- 
327 ; arranges and starts ma- 
chine-works at Mulhouso ; his 
numerous patents for processes 
in cotton manufacturing; his 
iron billiard-tables; his improve- 
ments in the locomotive steam- 
brake, 327, 328; merits and rep- 
utation of the firm ; his Jacquard 
punching-machine, 329 ; his 
shearing and punching-machine ; 
his turret-clock; prize electro- 
magnet; cigar-making machine; 
improvements in steamships ; 
elongated i-ifle projectiles, 830; 
many have gained largely by 
his lertility of invention; lie is 
left poor, 331. 

Roche, T. de la, and sun-pictures, 
219. 

Roebuck, Dr. ,Tohn, 149; birth, edu- 
cation, and early life, 170 ; settles 
at Birmingham as a physician; 
investigations in metallurgy and 
chemistry, 171 ; partnership with 
Mr. Garbett; he manufactures 



INDEX. 



409 



vitriol and pottery, 172; starts 
the Carron Iron- Works, 173 ; his 
patent, 174, 149 ; improves blow- 
ing apparatus ; residence at Kin- 
neil House ; leases coal-mines 
and salt-pans, 175; obtains the 
assistance of James Watt and 
becomes his partner, 176 ; his 
losses and ruin, 178 j transfers 
interest in Watt's engine to 
Boulton; Watt's opinion of Roe- 
buck ; his death, 179. 
Romans, the, introduced iron-man- 
ufacture into England, 33 ; iron 
exported by them, 34 ; knew the 
art of printing, 215; knew of 
gunpowder, 217 ; hydropathy, 
218. 

Savage life, implements of,18 - 22. 
Sawing-machinery, 207, 242, 269, 

272. 
Schwenter (1636), telegraphy, 219. 
Scotch iron-trade, its extension, 

ISO; exports to England, 202. 
Scotland in early times, scarcity 

of iron in, marauding seizures, 

41 ; its swords famous, 44. 
Scott, Sir W., early life, 362. 
Screw-cutting machinery,&c., 276, 

294, 302, 304, 331. 
Self-acting mule of Roberts and 

others, 324, 326 ; the radial arm, 

327. 
Shearing and punching-machine, 

229. 
Sheffield, its early iron and steel 

manufactures, 132 ; Flemish 

workmen, 133 ; greatly indebted 

to Huntsman, 143 ; practical skill 

of its workmen; production and 

exports of cast-steel, 147. 
Sheffield, Lord, and H. Cort, 151. 
Shells (ordnance) first made, 55. 
Ship-building, improvements in, 

232; first iron ships, 393. 
Slide-lathe the origin of the plan- 

ing-machine, 263, 276. 
Smeaton, James, and Dr. Roebuck, 

174. _ 
Smith, name of, 40. 
Smith, the, his first simple tools, 

39. 

18 



Smiths in early times, their impor- 
tance and rank, 28, 35, 42. 

Spanish Armada, scarcity of iron, 
44. 

Spain, early supply of iron from, 
44. 

Steam as man's drudge, 400. 

Steam-engine, improvers of: see 
Bkamah, Maudslay, Mukray, 
Nasmyth, and Watt. 

Steam-gun an old invention, 217. 

Steam-hammer, 343. 

Steam, use known to the ancients, 
214. 

Steam locomotion, first attempts, 
215. 

Steel, conversion of iron into, 131 ; 
blistered, shear, and fagot steel, 
134 ; cast-steel and its qualities, 
137 ; Bessemer's process, 145. 

Steel-yard Co. of For. Merchants, 
66. 

Stewart, Dug., at Kinneil House, 
175. 

Stone period in history, 23. 

Stourbridge, de.sti-uctive flood, 72. 

Strikes and their effects, 354, 377. 

Strutt, Wm., self-acting mule, 326. 

Sun, the nature of its surface,. 357. 

Sussex, early iron-works in, 35, 52 ; 
cannon first made in, 54 ; height 
of prosperity of iron-trade, 59; 
decline of iron-trade, 64. 

Swiss lake dwellings, 24. 

Swords, magic and enchanted, 36 ; 
of Ferrara, 42. 

Thamks and Severn, scheme for 
joining, 91. 

Tilt-Hammer, the, 343. 

Tin-plate manufacture, 92. 

Tool-makers, early, the smith, 206. 

Tools, early, of bone, fiint, &c., 
18-22,205. 

and civilization, 204-206. 

, improvements in, and ma- 
chinery opposed, 208, 260. 

, modern, their perfection, 227. 

, hand and machine, 361, 399. 

, machine, improvers of : 

see Bkamah, Clement, Fox, 
Maudslay, Murray, Nasmyth, 
Roberts, Whitwokth. 



410 



INDEX. 



TREATISI.. 

" Treatise of Metallica," 67. 
Tunnelling at ancient Babylon and 

Marseilles, 217. 
Turning and lathes, resumi of the 

history of, 256-263. 

UoHATius, Major, and steel manu- 
facture, 147. 

Venice, ancient, weapons with 
modern improvements in Ar- 
senal Museum, 217. 

Vinci, Leonardo da, the steam-gun 
and sun-painting, 218. 

Wakrioe, the, engines of, 227. 

Water-wheels, improved, 392. 

Watt, James, improvement of the 
steam-engine, and increased de- 
mand for iron, 155 ; erects first 
engine at Kinneil ; becomes part- 
ner with Dr. Roebuck, 177 ; Boul- 
ton becomes Watt's partner v. 
Dr. Roebuck, 178; Watt's sun- 
pictures, 219; his tilt-hammer, 
343. 

Wedgwood, Jos., and sun-pictures, 
219. 

Wheel-cuttingmachinery, 323,353. 

Whitworth, Joseph, of 'Manches- 
ter, trained in the workshops 
of Maudslay and Clement ; his 
system of screw-threads; his 



YARKANTON. 

" Jim Crow " planing-machine ; 
his method of securing a true 
plane, 331; his improvements in 
tools, rifled guns, and projectiles, 
332. 
Workmen's Institute, Neilson's, 
193. 

Yareanton, Andrew, 85 ; birth ; 
apprenticed to a linen-draper; 
joins parliamentary army in civil 
war; public reward for services, 
86 ; his iron-works ; linen manu- 
facture, 87; imprisonment;. es- 
cape and recapture, 88; plans 
for improving inland navigation, 
89; improvement of agriculture, 
91; plans docks for London; his 
tin-plate manufacture: acquired 
the art in Saxony, 92 ; is thwarted 
by Chamberlaine's patent, 95; 
travels in Holland, 96 ; senti- 
ments on trade ; his various 
projects, 97, 98, 101 ; his " Eng- 
land's Impi-ovement by Sea and 
Land," 98, 101; proposed land 
bank and registry of real estate, 
99; his controversies, 89, 100; 
his iron mining; surveys Dun- 
kirk port, 103; views in advance 
of his age, 103 ; his opinion on 
home-produced iron in time of 
war, 107. 



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